The Marginalised Majority in Higher Education: Marginalised Groups and the Barriers They Face 3031414314, 9783031414312

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The Marginalised Majority in Higher Education Marginalised Groups and the Barriers They Face

Troy Heffernan

The Marginalised Majority in Higher Education

Troy Heffernan

The Marginalised Majority in Higher Education Marginalised Groups and the Barriers They Face

Troy Heffernan Manchester Institute of Education University of Manchester Manchester, UK

ISBN 978-3-031-41431-2    ISBN 978-3-031-41432-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41432-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover credit: Sean De Burca This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

Contents

1 Introduction  1 References  11 2 Higher  Education Through a Bourdieusian Lens 13 Bourdieu’s Twentieth-Century Thinking in a Twenty-First-­ Century Context  14 Bourdieu’s Marginalised Beginning  15 The Birth of Educational Theory and Bourdieu’s Role  18 Criticisms of Bourdieu  19 Bourdieu’s Thoughts on Theory  22 Bourdieu’s Role in the Evolution of Methods  25 Bourdieu’s Approach to Education  27 Summary  36 References  37 3 Bourdieu’s Primary Theories 41 Habitus  42 Field  48 Capital  58 Habitus, Field, and Capital in Higher Education  73 Summary  76 References  76

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4 The  History of the University 79 In the Beginning  81 After the Second World War  86 Summary 100 References 101 5 Disability  in Higher Education105 A Note on Disability 107 Progress Made, but Still Not There 109 Disability Barriers 111 Perceptions of Disability 114 School-to-University Transition 116 Mental Health 117 Academic Identity 119 COVID and Online Learning 122 Summary 123 References 125 6 Women  in Higher Education129 Women Students 130 Family and University Students 133 Stereotypes and Gender Roles of Women Students 135 Women in Academia 138 Women Academics and Family 141 Women and Career Progression 143 Summary 148 References 149 7 Sexual  Identity in Higher Education155 Students and Sexual Identity 156 Visibility in the Classroom 158 Safety and Belonging 159 The Hidden Statistics 162 The University Setting 162 Academics and Sexuality 166 Sexual Identity in Higher Education 169 Summary 171 References 172

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8 Higher  Education and Race177 A Starting Point 179 The University Space and Race 181 Breaking Down the Barriers 185 University Staff and Racism 190 The Fight for Inclusion 192 Extra Duties 194 Summary 197 References 198 9 Class  and Higher Education205 Why Social Class Matters 207 The Student Perspective 212 Social Class and Other Marginalisations 217 Steps Forward and Solutions 219 Social Class and Working in Higher Education 223 Summary 227 References 228 10 Conclusion233 References 239 Index243

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

This book is a synthesis of where my research from 2017 to the current day has taken me. The motivation for this work is an acknowledgement of how much higher education has changed to be a more welcoming place for marginalised staff and students since its inception, particularly given the advances over the last few years. Sadly though, this work is also a demonstration of how much further we have to go before the higher education sector can truly view itself as diverse and inclusive. Of course, books are also personal expressions. This book may be about my research and the shifts in university approaches to marginalised groups, but its origins also lie in my own experiences as a marginalised student and academic. I first enrolled in university as an education/history undergraduate in the early 2000s straight out of high school. Despite being a good student in high school and gaining a university position, becoming a university student was an entirely different situation to high school and I encountered numerous difficulties almost immediately. Being blind, I had always relied on a lot of small favours to make it through high school (asking friends for notes or teachers for clarification), and at the end of the day, you can gain a significant amount of knowledge just from listening. However, that support structure did not exist when I first got to university. I did not have already established friend groups to rely on, and by the time those friendships had formed, I was too far behind. To make matters worse, university content was covered at a rapid pace, and that made relying on hearing

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 T. Heffernan, The Marginalised Majority in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41432-9_1

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lectures a method that was not enough to bridge the gaps. At the same time, I appreciated even then that the university was doing almost everything they could, they just were not set up to contend with people with disabilities like mine at that time—I dare say most people with a disability likely met a similar fate to me if they attempted higher education 20-plus years ago. That is, experiencing good intensions, but an inability to offer meaningful support to their candidates with disabilities. I attempted university two more times, at different institutions and courses, but in the early 2000s, in Australia, the reality was that universities were not set up to deal with a student marginalised by disability. For me, the breakthrough came a decade and a half later as I came to realise just how much online learning had crept into existence. For me, recorded lectures, notes on course websites, a lot of materials being available online, and online discussion forums was what I needed to succeed. It also cannot be denied that though my first attempt at university failed because the support structures were not in place, my success did not come because the sector improved its support to disabled students, the learning options simply evolved into a system that worked for me. However, that is just me, and my story. I know from my research and talking to many others with disabilities and from other marginalised backgrounds that the first decades of the twenty-first century have seen great strides forward in the way higher education approaches marginalised students and staff—so much so, that the people once on the periphery of higher education have become the majority of the student and staff populations (Scobey, 2016). I find this fact to be amazing. That in the last two and a half decades, a sector that has for most of the last 1000 years gone from ostracising most people that did not fit their desired mould, to being slightly inclusive during the later twentieth century, to making significant changes today, deserves to be recognised even if the journey is far from over. However, that is why this book starts by covering the history of the university from its religious origins, to its use as a social tool to enable the male children of professional white men to gain an education to allow them into a professional field, and to the massification of higher education (Forsyth, 2014). It was as higher education went from an elite privilege, to a mass market system (though still a class-based system), in the last few decades, since perhaps the 1970s, that has seen university study become an option for a much wider group of society than would have been possible only a few decades before. As we approach the mid-twenty-first century, universities are as accessible to women, and people marginalised by race,

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gender, sexual identity, disability, class (and many other marginalising characteristics) as they ever have been. These aspects are celebrated in this book, and they deserve to be celebrated. The support structures and systems put in place by universities to foster more inclusive practices has made higher education possible for millions of people who otherwise would not have had the option. For all the success, however, this book is also honest about the repercussions of being from a marginalised group in higher education. We will discuss the fact that though there are systems in place to aid and support marginalised students to enter the classroom, and marginalised academics to enter the offices, almost every aspect of success remains defined by privilege. This book explores how and why inclusion does not equal equity. We know that even if marginalised students are accepted into programmes, they complete the programme at a lower rate than their privileged peers, they receive lower grades, they are less able to transfer their degree into employment, and when they do, they receive lower payment for their services (Heffernan, 2022b). At the same time for those people from marginalised groups going into academia as a profession, it takes them longer to enter the field than their privileged colleagues, their careers progress slower, they progress in different directions which head towards teaching duties and away from the academic prestige of growing research profiles and notoriety, they enter the professoriate at lower levels, and there is a distinct underrepresentation of marginalised groups in university leadership and management (Heffernan, 2022b). What we see in higher education is marginalised groups being given access, but rarely being given equity. Success in higher education remains tied to those who possess the qualities higher education (and professional careers) tend to value—being white, male, and middle class. There is nonetheless an unmistakable irony to what has happened to higher education in the last few decades. We have watched the inclusion of marginalised groups grow in number, the websites of every university are covered with photographs and videos of diverse and inclusive students and staff, and universities have pledges and dedications towards being more inclusive and caring about their underrepresented students and staff. The programmes have resulted in significant growth in women and people from marginalised backgrounds entering higher education to the point where the marginalised groups who were once ostracised from higher education now comprise the majority. That is to say, in higher education, in terms of sheer numbers, we have now become ‘the marginalised

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majority’. Yet, what we do not have is power, or influence. We are allowed into the sector in great numbers, but those who control the sector are not marginalised, and whether it be via intentional or unintentional actions, they continue to keep marginalised groups as second-class students and colleagues. As this book explores, this was made clear to many during the initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As student numbers, tuition fees, and funding decreased in many countries across the globe, it was support structures and services that had often successfully enabled access and support to marginalised students and academics that were cut (Hurd & Plaut, 2018; Tamtik & Guenter, 2020). These outcomes tell us two things. The first is that if a system that claims to be dedicated to inclusion and diversity can only do so via support services and structures, then we might see some evidence of a willingness to change. Though, if those support structures are all that enable the change, then it is clear no systematic changes have occurred to make a privileged system more open and accessible. Secondly, the fact that these were the services that were so often cut as a cost-cutting measure during COVID austerity measures speaks volumes to the true divide between leadership, privilege, and the wider cohorts of staff and students. If a relatively sector-wide response to funding issues is to cut the systems used to encourage and support members from marginalised groups (who the sector claims to value and support), then we can raise some immediate questions over just how much the sector ever valued its marginalised students and staff. Understanding the issues of privilege, class, leadership, and fitting in within the higher education sector can be a complex web. It means piecing together how different aspects of a person’s upbringing, personal life, and career history can help or hinder their academic success as a student, or academic career success if they pursue a role in the academy. I experienced this web first-hand, and its consequences, when I first started teaching in higher education. My university teaching career began with teaching history. I had an undergraduate and master’s degree in history and politics, and was completing a doctorate in history and education. I was also enrolled at a small regional university which meant there were plentiful opportunities for teaching experiences. I had always loved history as a subject at school and also books or documentaries, it did not matter, I always found it interesting. My primary area was early modern British history, so, often considered the sixteenth/seventeenth century to perhaps the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign. I think I always found this period

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most interesting because as distant and far removed as it is from today, the seeds of government, education, business, and community (particularly in an Australian perspective) were present in British history 400 to 500 years ago. Having the opportunity to teach a subject I was so passionate about was amazing, but as I have recorded in books, papers, and presentations before, walking into the classroom for the first time raised immediate questions for me. My love of history was quickly overtaken by my realisation that my students were not all the same. I had been particularly focused on identifying visual disabilities and marginalising factors that were clear and I might be able to assist with, but it was much more difficult to contend with the hidden issues behind race, gender, social class, or sexual identity. A tutorial of 30 students does not have 30 students starting from the same point as they attempt to complete the class and receive a good grade. A tutorial of 30 students will have a portion of the privileged (in Australia, this usually looks like white, middle-class, private school-­ educated men), but everyone else in the class will be starting from a different point. For some, this deficit may not be much (but it is there), and for others, the deficit might be much more significant and impactful to their chances of success. As an academic walking into a classroom for the first time, this can be a daunting realisation, and a difficult one once you accept that there are entry pathways and support for students to pass their classes, but that in no way sets them up for equity with their privileged peers. I also witnessed similar experiences in the corridors, even if they were much less pronounced. From pop culture and being a student, I had already worked out that there was a hierarchy to academic careers. There were the obvious ones such as a faculty dean being the top of the hierarchy in an area, but working in a university very quickly provided a lot more information about what the general differences in roles were, at least in an Australian context, from lecturer through to professor. However, what I had not expected, and what was much more difficult to decipher was who and (more secretly) why, a different hierarchy seemed to exist. Regardless of academic rank, some people seemed more prone to do teaching than others, some people seemed to carry much more of the administrative burden than others, and consequently, some appeared to have much more favourable allocations of time given to them to conduct research—which seemed extremely valuable to me given that academia is the career known for ‘publish or perish’.

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As a higher education researcher who often focuses on careers and career progression, I have researched the factors at play as academics tend to get shifted into roles that focus on teaching, or administration, or research. However, I also know that how these decisions are made may appear to be about merit or potential, but what they are really about is privilege. As we will discuss in this book, research time and research funding can be calculated via metrics and notions of merit, but those metrics and ideas of merit tend to drape a seemingly objective cloak of merit over privilege and advantage. In dissecting these issues within higher education, Pierre Bourdieu is a theorist who provides clear ways to understand what is happening and why, and it was his work that helped me (and no doubt millions of others) come to realise just how little achievement in education as a student or academic was about merit, and instead how much of it is about the accrual of capital throughout someone’s life and into their education, and career in education (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977; Bourdieu, 1988). Just as Bourdieu will help us explore how white, middle-class, male, heterosexual, able-bodied students will have the clearest and easiest path to higher grades, chances of employment, and larger salaries—he will also help us understand why this same group will encounter fewer closed gates as they ascend the academic ladder. We will also see how society’s unmistakable sexism and gendered approach to domestic and care duties alters someone’s composition and turns (usually) women marginalised by gender, to experience education and career interruptions not faced by their male colleagues. To return to the earlier example, a white, middle-class, private school-educated woman is likely to perform at a very high level in her studies and as she begins her academic career. Yet like so many other professional careers, childcare will likely be her responsibility if she chooses to have children, she will be more likely to interrupt her career for the benefit of her partner if she is in a heterosexual relationship, and she will be more likely expected to provide care to elderly family members. Thus, a student and academic marginalised by her gender but with a significant amount of privilege is still much more likely to see society and societal expectations place new barriers in front of her as her life progresses (Heffernan, 2022a; Lipton, 2017). For all this talk about Bourdieu, and how Bourdieu will help us understand how marginalisation formed in society, and what it looks like and the issues it causes in the university, this is, as strange as it may seem, not a book about Bourdieu. For a full dissection of higher education through

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Bourdieu’s theories, you can either go straight to his own work on the topic, Homo Academicus (1988). Or, for how his theories look and can be applied to the state of higher education in the modern era, this is a topic I have already attempted in Bourdieu and Higher Education: Life in the Modern University. Bourdieu might be the lens through which we look at the data and how different the experience of higher education might be because of your gender, race, sexual identity, and many other characteristics that do not necessarily ‘fit’ into the traditional realms of higher education, but what this book is about is power. For almost 1000 years the university was controlled by the same people it advantaged. For the first 500 years this was tied to religion, and for the last 500 years it slowly expanded to include other areas such as history, medicine, maths, and science. At all times though, it was led and shaped by a privileged few, for the benefit of an equally privileged small and very specific group. Depending on your location, women started to be allowed into this space 100–150 years ago, but not in any meaningful number, and they remained on the perimeter, and very much an afterthought to the structure set up for men, by men. In the last few decades who is allowed into universities has expanded further as, in some ways, universities try to correct the errors of their ways. Some fields are now dominated by women, and different disciplinary areas have different relationships with marginalised groups in terms of number and acceptance (Heffernan, 2021; Woodfield, 2019). Many faculties and universities are led by deans, vice-­ chancellors, and presidents who do not fit the mould of being privileged middle-class white men. With this growth in students and staff who are so different to those who once would have exclusively had access to higher education, it would be reasonable to think that as the marginalised majority formed, they acquired some real control in how the higher education sector operates. This book is about how this is not the case. Universities might be welcoming more types of people from different types of backgrounds into classrooms and into offices, but ‘welcoming’ is also a nicer way of describing ‘allowing’. The power structures of universities never, or have rarely, changed. Marginalised groups may have been welcomed and celebrated, but they were always kept at arm’s length from power and enacting systemic change. Thus, as much as marginalised students and academics were allowed in and they feature on university websites, any form of financial downturn usually demonstrates just how quickly the declared ‘care’ and ‘support’ of marginalised communities can be removed. Subsequently, marginalised faces disappear from classrooms, and

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it is marginalised academics who more often than not end up with teaching and administration duties while their privileged peers conduct the celebrated work of research that leads to funding, publications, promotions, and an international profile (Harris et  al., 2022; Heffernan, 2020; Heffernan & Harpur, 2023). I love universities. I believe that every researcher who walks onto campus wants to make society better; I know the importance of pushing students to think differently and understanding the thoughts and justification that other people might have for their beliefs. I know that university is not for everyone, and you do not have to attend university to have a successful career and to have a good life, but I believe that anyone who wants to attend university should have the option to attend and should not be prevented from the opportunity because they are not male, white, heterosexual, able-bodied, or middle class. This book breaks down what has happened in a step-by-step process to aid in demonstrating to the marginalised members of the academy and the power they hold. Anyone who has read Freire, and particularly his ground-­ breaking work Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), will be entirely familiar with the tactics the oppressors use to make the oppressed feel like they have a voice, and feel like they should be thankful for what they have received, and that they have received what they deserve. I am not suggesting that what takes place in universities is as severe as some of the political scenarios with which Freire dealt, but he was also an educator and saw the power struggles in education in most of his work. Over the last few decades, the divide in universities has grown significantly. They are led by teams of executives, often with million-dollar salaries, who preside over a workforce that is increasingly casualised. No matter their employment status, their ability to rebel and protest for better working conditions for themselves and classroom conditions for their students has been diminished by ensuring they can now be ‘restructured’ out at any time. For centuries, universities and faculties were led by senior scholars for the good of scholars and students. They are now increasingly led by businesspeople with little to no experience in education or academics—solid evidence of corporate hijacking of institutions once dedicated to social good. For those in academia who choose a leadership path, even then, it is all but impossible to not fall into the corporate line. As my former dean, colleague, and regular co-author Lynn Bosetti once suggested—you cannot be an academic in leadership, once you take on a leadership role the academic part of you dies, and is replaced by the corporate pressures of the

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role (Bosetti & Heffernan, 2021). These are the battles marginalised academics are facing. It is a corporate system led by the privileged, and while all academics are at a disadvantage, the system nonetheless disadvantages marginalised academics most of all—but we are the majority. This book begins with an overview of Bourdieu and what his theories look like in a higher education setting. Having his ideas about the lack of merit in education, and the importance of possessing the capital valued by the field, that then helps gain more capital, and is transferred into career success. That is to say, possessing the attributes that the university favours and rewards. Bourdieu’s ideas help shape our understanding of why career success in a field such as academia is in some ways (and definitely was for many centuries) determined by birth. An exploration of the history of the university highlights what this looked like in the beginning and as we approached the twenty-first century because as different as the university is now than it was a century ago, or even 50 or 20 years ago, there is a clear trajectory to how we got where we are today, and it lies in the sector’s history. We then examine what role the university plays in modern society. So much of society’s understanding of universities, how they work, and their function comes from popular culture or what they are told by politicians or the media. When around 30 to 40% of the current generation will attend higher education, and only around 10% of older generations attended university, a majority of the population is left to be told what is happening in higher education. This is understandably problematic for the work academics and students complete. However, it is also a significant issue in times of austerity when government can play on popular perceptions of university life to justify funding cuts. The book then analyses the history and status quo of the major factors that marginalise students and staff in universities. These chapters include examinations of what academia looks like for women and the factors that impact on their student and career success. As the largest group marginalised in higher education (a sector orchestrated by and for the benefit of middle-class men), women outnumber men in higher education, and yet the systems in place disadvantage women students and academics, and rewards those who do not have the gendered responsibility of care, and more often than not, sacrificing their own career for their male partner’s aspirations. Other chapters explore factors such as disability, gender, sexual identity, race, and social class. Higher education has very different relationships with people marginalised by different factors. In each

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chapter, we will examine the history of that relationship, how it evolved through to the mid-twenty-first century, how the sector has ostracised them (intentionally or not) and what it means to be part of that marginalised group today. For these chapters I have had the good fortune to have wonderful colleagues to call upon who are experts in their fields and have the advantage of lived experiences to help understand what it is to be marginalised in the academy, and what it can mean for success in student’s studies or academic’s careers. Kate Smithers, James Burford, Rafaan Daliri-Ngametua, and Leanne Higham have provided invaluable insights into these chapters. They have helped explore the different consequences of marginalisation while I have continued weaving the threads of Bourdieu through each chapter, and attempted to highlight that while some groups experience unique consequences from being a marginalised person in higher education, often, the system treats as the same. This fact alone can help bring us together in our attempts to have a stronger voice in a sector where we are the dominant population, and it could not operate as it does in the twenty-­ first century without our presence. The final chapter explores why the privileged still lead the marginalised majority, and what the majority can do to change the trajectory into the future. It is probably unrealistic to think that universities can step back from the corporate model, this was essentially the result of the funding changes decades ago. It is unlikely that universities in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, or the United States will see funding increases at the same time as metric-driven accountabilities are only growing in prominence; thus, we have to accept that at least in the short term we need to work within these parameters. However, marginalised students and academics have come a long way in only a short period, and we need to look for ways to work within the current system. This is important for ourselves, to help shape the university into a structure led by all members of society for the benefit of all members of society. It is also important to consider that while this book focuses on the impact of being a marginalised student, students come and go, and they might only be in the academy for four or five years. It is thus inevitably going to be the role of the marginalised academic and social justice researcher to ensure that systems and practices change to benefit students as higher education continues into the twenty-first century.

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References Bosetti, L., & Heffernan, T. (2021). Diminishing hope and utopian thinking: Faculty leadership under neoliberal regime. Journal of Educational Administration and History. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220620.2021. 1910219 Bourdieu, P. (1988). Homo academicus (P. Collier, Trans.). Polity. Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J.  C. (1977). Reproduction in society, education and culture (R. Nice, Trans.). Sage. Forsyth, H. (2014). A history of the modern Australian university. Sydney: NewSouth Publishing. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum. Harris, J., Smithers, K., Spina, N., & Heffernan, T. (2022). Disrupting dominant discourses of the other: Examining experiences of contract researchers in the academy. Studies in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/0307507 9.2022.2105831 Heffernan, T. (2020). Examining university leadership and the increase in workplace hostility through a Bourdieusian lens. Higher Education Quarterly, 75(2), 199–211. https://doi.org/10.1111/hequ.12272 Heffernan, T. (2021). History of education in Australia. Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Education. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/97801902 64093.013.1459 Heffernan, T. (2022a). Bourdieu and higher education: Life in the modern university. Springer. Heffernan, T. (2022b). Forty years of social justice research in Australasia: Examining equity in inequitable settings. Higher Education Research and Development, 41(1), 48–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2021. 2011152 Heffernan, T., & Harpur, P. (2023). Discrimination against academics and career implications of student evaluations: University policy versus legal compliance. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.108 0/02602938.2023.2225806 Hurd, K., & Plaut, V. (2018). Diversity entitlement: Does diversity-benefits ideology undermine inclusion? Northwestern University Law Review, 112(6), 1605–1636. https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/nulr/vol112/iss6/12 Lipton, B. (2017). Measures of success: Cruel optimism and the paradox of academic women’s participation in Australian higher education. Higher Education Research & Development, 36(3), 486–497.

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Scobey, D. (2016). Marginalized majority: Non-traditional students and the equity imperative. Diversity and Democracy, 19(1). https://www.aacu.org/ diversitydemocracy/2016/winter/scobey Tamtik, M., & Guenter, M. (2020). Policy analysis of equity, diversity and inclusion strategies in Canadian universities  – How far have we come? Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 49(3), 41–56. https://doi.org/10.7202/ 1066634ar Woodfield, R. (2019). The gendered landscape of UK higher education: Do men feel disadvantaged? Gender and Education, 31(1), 15–32. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/09540253.2017.1288859

CHAPTER 2

Higher Education Through a Bourdieusian Lens

This chapter examines the life of Pierre Bourdieu to look at what motivated him to become an academic, what events in his life shaped his approach to education, higher education, and the implications of class and marginalisation in social settings and wider society. The chapter also follows the trajectory of some of Bourdieu’s most important ideas and concepts to understand why the works of someone who died at the turn of the century are still relevant today. As we have already touched on, Bourdieu was an academic. He may have been a very famous academic by the end of his career and I am quite sure he would have had incredible freedom compared to his colleagues, but he nonetheless had doctoral students, he taught classes, gave lectures, and dealt with the politics of faculty and university life. These points are so important to this book, and how his work is used in higher education, because not only does it demonstrate the flexibility of his concepts, and how class and privilege manifest in the same way almost regardless of setting, higher education was also at the core of his thinking. Therefore, this chapter is about the person and how their primary ideas unfolded, before the next chapter examines those concepts in more detail. A key part of Bourdieu’s work, and something I have tried to make clear throughout this book, is just how much his concepts can be transferred to virtually any social or work setting. We are looking at higher education, and we will be using his ideas to examine how and why the

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 T. Heffernan, The Marginalised Majority in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41432-9_2

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privileged rose to power, and why marginalised groups growing in number have not equated to marginalised people gaining much (if any) systemic control or influence. Ultimately though, what Bourdieu provided, and perhaps why he has such a lasting legacy, is tools that can be used to examine the structures of power and control in almost any setting. Yes, we will be looking at those concepts in relation to higher education, but we will explore the tools, explore the concepts, and examine these ideas through the example of higher education so readers can see the concepts, get an idea of how they formed, and see an example of how they might be applied. I found this method to be the best way for me to grasp the practicalities of Bourdieu’s work, and hopefully this book will also give those unfamiliar with Bourdieu the knowledge to take his tools and think about their own workplaces and social interactions in new ways to make sense of the clear, and more nuanced and subtle, complexities that shape our society.

Bourdieu’s Twentieth-Century Thinking in a Twenty-First-Century Context As has already been touched on repeatedly in this work, Bourdieu’s history is an integral part to understand his concepts and tools. Thus, it should not be a surprise for the unfamiliar to learn that a regular feature of any book that discusses Bourdieu tends to spend at least some time dedicated to surveying his history. As we have already discussed, this is extremely helpful when it comes to understanding the motivations behind his thinking, but understanding Bourdieu’s timeline and history is key in seeing why some societal aspects were overlooked. This is explored in the major works regarding Bourdieu’s ideas such as (in alphabetical order) Grenfell (2014), Grenfell and James (1998), Heffernan (2022a), Schirato and Roberts (2018), and Webb et al. (2002). With Bourdieu’s passing in 2002, works published sometime after his death and further into the twenty-first century tend to pay more attention to the context and social settings within which Bourdieu was formulating his work. This is important to consider because as advantageous as it is to those interested in higher education that Bourdieu was an academic dissecting the power struggles and benefits of privilege in higher education, the university is not an abstract place. He was surveying and considering what he saw around him, but what he saw was the French higher education system

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of the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Thus, as much as there is a structure to higher education that is relatively the same across the globe, that has altered in different places and at different times, he was still operating and thinking and refining his concepts in the context of the French university system of the latter-twentieth century. His ideas were subsequently influenced by the nuances of the French system, meaning his ideas cannot always be directly transferred to what was, or is, happening in other global university sectors. Some of his concepts have suffered the same fate. Bourdieu’s works began in France, in the late-1950s—in the modern era researchers have noted that this time-period did not always result in ideas around gender, class, power, and race, to name but a few, that most people would consider to be acceptable or fully developed in 2020 and beyond (Thomson, 2017). These aspects of Bourdieu’s work have been considered through this book, and indeed I think most researchers using Bourdieu will do the same in their own thinking regardless of the size of the project. However, while this has been contemplated at every turn, in this book, with its use (but not focus) of Bourdieu, the criticisms of his work have had minimal major influence. Bourdieu has a body of work stretching more than 40 years that covers an enormous number of topics that began with education, but ended with work, art, television, real estate, families, communities, and the list continues extensively. This book uses Bourdieu as a starting point. We will take his broad ideas around education, power, and privilege and apply them to higher education in the twenty-first century. This is partly to avoid the above-mentioned obstacles and criticisms, and partly out of necessity. Bourdieu never could have contemplated that, for example, students and staff with disabilities would comprise almost 10% of their cohorts, and that percentage was growing rapidly year-over-year (Heffernan, 2022b). Therefore, this book takes Bourdieu’s twentieth-­ century notions and uses them as a catalyst to begin twenty-first-century discussion and assessment.

Bourdieu’s Marginalised Beginning Bourdieu’s story starts in an unfamiliar place for someone who became a renowned educational theorist. Bourdieu was born in France in 1930, and in an area where few people had financial security. This is to say, Bourdieu grew up in a poor, lower-class area (Bourdieu, 2007). It is obviously not possible to make predictions about what might have happened to Bourdieu

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in different scenarios, but we can discuss trends. On the day of Bourdieu’s birth, August 1, 1930, the likelihood that he would have any opportunity to attend university was minimal. World War I was not that far in the past, World War II lay in the future, but crucially, in 1930, university primarily remained the complete domain of the privileged in all but the rarest of circumstances. That Bourdieu would reach university age following a war and into the 1950s, potentially made all the difference because it is following World War II that we begin to see the global approach to higher education change. Economic recovery, growth, and stability, scientific advances through research, and the wider benefits of the growing educated population were all reasons that the seeds of expanding higher education had been planted following World War II (Forsyth, 2014). However, we do not really see the major changes in higher education occur until the 1960s for the most part. Thus, while changes were taking place below the surface, Bourdieu was nonetheless extremely fortunate to have circumstances occur that led him to higher education. Bourdieu was also very cognisant of the fact that he was the exception to the rule. He knew people like him rarely escaped agricultural jobs, he knew people like him rarely escaped agricultural areas, and it was this knowledge that drove him forward in his thinking. Questions around why someone’s birthplace could dictate their chances of attending a good school, of doing well in school, of having support to do well in school, and having the option of a direction in their life (rather than knowing they were limited to the options within their immediate surrounds) inspired his thinking. These events shaped his work around habitus, capital, and field (as we will get to in the next chapter) because he knew he was the lucky one, he knew he was fortunate enough to experience ‘miraculous social mobility’ (Bourdieu, 2007, p. 5), and he believed exploring the social mechanisms that shaped people’s position in society was the only way to repair the social damage. So while Bourdieu was fortunate, and he benefitted from the beginning of a slight shift in how society thought about higher education, his step into higher education occurred because of his own academic excellence. His achievements through his schooling years resulted in a place at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris in 1951. Bourdieu studied philosophy, and as Schirato and Roberts (2018) note, it is necessary in the twenty-first century to point out that in France, in the 1950s, studying philosophy was seen as one of the most academically challenging subjects someone could

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undertake; to be admitted into the programme itself was evidence of academic prowess. Sadly, this point requires special mention because of the state of philosophy as a subject, and the humanities more widely, in the twenty-first century. Their societal value has been questioned and mocked, and jeopardised by university administrations forced to operate as corporations due to poor funding models with no regard for what these subjects offered. This book is a piece of evidence as to the value of these subjects. Bourdieu’s concepts stemmed from his thinking as a philosopher, and just as he applied his ideas as a sociologist, this book uses his ideas to understand and (hopefully contribute to the wider efforts) make a difference to how marginalised staff and students can succeed in higher education. Therefore, the social value of philosophy and history has purposely been deflated by governments and universities by shaping these subjects as abstract pursuits on the periphery of need, when in fact, these subjects provide the thinking and framework that influence and shape so many other areas that might have more direct connections to society and change, but need the tools provided by philosophers, historians, and sociologists to carry out this work. Bourdieu had completed his initial studies by 1955 when he went to Algeria to complete his military service. It was during his military service that he wrote Sociologie de l’Algérie (The Algerians) which was published in 1958, before he left the military and from 1958 to 1960 took a position at the University of Algiers, before moving to the Centre de Sociologie Européenne in Paris (Schirato & Roberts, 2018). Bourdieu’s short path from university study to military service, and return to Paris is important to consider because it highlights how from the time he completed his schooling in 1954, to essentially the time of his death, he was almost entirely surrounded by academia and university-thinking. The only exception to this was during his military service and yet it was during this time that he wrote his first book. As has already been touched on, this trajectory is important because it highlights the in-depth knowledge Bourdieu had of higher education and educational institutions. It is also why so many of Bourdieu’s tools can be applied to many different social settings, but they were nonetheless crafted and reformed with higher education being an ever-present part of Bourdieu’s thinking (Bourdieu, 2007; Grenfell, 2014).

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The Birth of Educational Theory and Bourdieu’s Role Bourdieu may have shaped educational theory (or theories that can be applied to education), and he holds a pivotal role in the development of educational theory as we know it today, but it is important to point out that he built upon the change in how we think about educational theory in the modern era—he did not cause or lead the change. The ‘change’ in question related to how the ‘theory’ in ‘educational theory’ meant using the same definition and use of theory as it was used in the sciences. This primarily meant the creating, testing, reforming, and application of hypotheses to the classroom (O’Connor, 1957). Grenfell and James (1998) do a wonderful job of highlighting why this system was problematic. They argue that the issue with this method was that the defining factor, if a new concept or theory would be applied to the classroom, was if a hypothesis was created and it was theoretically sound. That is to say, if a hypothesis was created, and it worked in a theoretical sense because the scientific methodologies in place said it would, then it was applied to the practical setting of the classroom/school. However, classrooms and educational institutions are not theoretical places, they are practical settings, and making and implementing decisions based on theoretical merit do not always equate to success. The shift towards educational theory as we know it today, and the basis for which Bourdieu built his ideas, began in the 1960s. Paul Hirst (1966) is often credited as the first person to discuss why changes needed to take place. In many ways, Hirst (1966) started from the same place as people like O’Connor and he had no problems with the idea of educational theory being about verifying hypotheses regarding teaching and learning before they were applied to the classroom. However, Hirst knew results would be improved if a few more steps and considerations were added. Hirst and O’Connor both saw the merit of the scientific approach to educational theory. They both saw theory as being the collection of ideas that took someone from a hypothesis, to the results (and quality of those results). Where Hirst began to differ from O’Conner, and the decades of earlier educational thought, is the acceptance that a scientifically sound approach would not always result in a successful practical application. Hirst (1966) saw the practical settings that educational theory hoped to improve as not being sterile, abstract, and places that were all the same and would be improved by the same theories. Instead, Hirst realised that

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understanding the practical setting, acknowledging that each setting could be different, and could change, was a vital element of information that needed to be part of the equation when educational theorists were developing their ideas to improve education. Essentially, Hirst realised that the first part of any new theory in education had to be to fully understand the dynamics of the practical setting you were trying to improve. This is where Bourdieu fits into the changing shape of educational theory. As he was thinking about his own experiences and how he made it into a setting where he would not have traditionally been allowed or fit, he realised the incredible importance of understanding the setting before you tried to improve it. His work is around habitus, field, and capital, and all the tools we can use to understand a setting because every setting is different, and because everyone’s experience within a setting will be different. For example, some people make it into university easily because they are white, male, middle class, and their parents attended university. Other people in the same classroom may not be, or benefit from any of these traits and instead be in the classroom because of a scholarship, or allocated funding for certain groups. Bourdieu knew that both people may have been in the classroom, but their experiences would be exceptionally different, and what worked to improve the setting for one, may not improve things for another. What is more important (and as is so crucial to this book) is that Bourdieu also knew that this happening to different people in the same setting was not about chance, it was predictable and repetitive, and with great accuracy someone with the right knowledge could have a very good idea of what would happen to different people as they entered, and later left, the classroom and why. Thus, when we think about educational theory, it was O’Conner and the ideas leading up to the 1960s that looked for theoretical changes to improve practice, but it was Hirst (and later Bourdieu and many others since) who knew that understanding the setting and invisible prejudices affecting those in the setting was the first step to creating ideas to enact change.

Criticisms of Bourdieu Hirst may have realised the importance of surveying the setting, and even though Bourdieu dedicated much of his research to looking at different ways of dissecting and understanding what was going on to shape a setting and those within it, his ideas were not always perfect. Sometimes this was about context. Bourdieu was a French theorist working at a French

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university and thus most of his ideas were shaped by what was happening, and how these things were happening, in the French context. The implication was that sometimes Bourdieu applied his ideas to other areas, and sometimes other researchers applied his ideas to different areas and hence issues could be lost in translation from one government, administration, or context to another. That this could happen is perhaps unsurprising given that his ideas were readily applied to many contexts within the Westernised world and included issues beyond government and education systems to other contexts that are widely different from one country to another such as real estate, journalism, and media (Thomson, 2017). Another criticism that is often found within Bourdieu’s work is that the tools he provided (and how he applied them) worked with the information he selected, but he either did not include information, issues, or scenarios that were in fact highly relevant to how people fit within a setting. Or else, some of the issues he considered (or failed to consider) were not seen as issues (rightly or wrongly) in France when Bourdieu was creating and reforming his theories, but they are relevant in the twenty-first century because social science research has evolved so much in only a relatively short period (Webb et al., 2002). A clear example of this can be seen in how Bourdieu often wrote about his own views on the connection between social and economic capital. A basic principle of Bourdieu’s ideas was that someone’s social capital was tied to their economic capital because economic capital is something valued in most social circles; so much so that someone’s social capital and position within a setting could rise and fall based on changes in their economic status (Bourdieu, 2005). Bourdieu knew that someone’s birth influenced their cultural trajectory, therefore, he made the connection from birth and community to adult social capital, but he did not always explore or consider that someone’s birth and the community they were born into was not about chance, it was also about the result of racism and systemic oppression (or advancement) of some groups over others (Thomson, 2017). We see similar circumstances occur when Bourdieu talks (or more to the point, fails to talk about) issues relating to gender, sexual identity, disability, race, and other factors that marginalised people contend with in settings small and large. If we look at an issue such as gender, it is perhaps not surprising to know that ideas formed via a white man in France in the 1960s do not always consider or reflect issues around gender as we would today with 60 more years of social science research guiding our

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knowledge. Thus, in some instances, it is clear we have to say that Bourdieu missed the point, and got some ideas wrong. Yet even in a lot of other areas, the primary issue is that he failed to see what was around him, and sometimes that was because he could not see the issues at all. Education and disability is one such area, all but completely missing from his work on educational settings, particularly higher education settings (Bourdieu, 1988). However, I would suggest, as an academic with a disability, this is because the inclusion of disabilities within his thinking was overlooked because the notion of someone with a disability even featuring in an educational setting was almost unheard of (perhaps outside of mobility issues) during most of his lifetime. We cannot hide the fact that Bourdieu in some cases missed the point, but in others, he was just plain wrong and his ideas and how they have been applied have had to undergo significant re-­ evaluation and revision to take into account the prejudices Bourdieu sometimes missed, and at others, incorrectly assessed (Reay, 2004a; Thomson, 2017). When considering Bourdieu’s works and revisions, and when examining how different people have used and applied his theories, we must also give consideration to timing (in terms of publication), and translation (from French to English) of Bourdieu’s works. Grenfell (2014) and Webb et  al. (2002) both highlight the issues surrounding Bourdieu’s earlier work, and Bourdieu’s less popular works relating to these issues which can (and has impacted) impact on what information was available and at what time to different readers. For example, Bourdieu’s earlier works were not readily translated into English because he was a French theorist working in France. However, when Bourdieu became more popular it became more common that his works were much sooner (or at the time of original publication) also published in multiple languages. In the modern era, we have access to virtually the entire catalogue of Bourdieu’s works in English. The issue, though I find it a fascinating one from a historical viewpoint on document analysis, is that it is incredibly difficult to determine with accuracy what the order of things are when examining the older works, or what people have written about them. We see instances of Bourdieu’s works being translated to English at, or after, their original publication date, but not seeing Bourdieu’s own revisions and changes to his own ideas being translated into English until much later; meaning English-reading scholars continued to work with, criticise, praise, or suggest changes to Bourdieu’s theories when he had already altered his thinking or changed his views in works that were not immediately translated into English. In similar

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circumstances, there is also the impact of some of Bourdieu’s works not being translated until much later after their original publication which was the consequence of Bourdieu being absent from discussions his work may have had a place in, or that it appears Bourdieu was now aware of certain issues and their implications, when in fact these ideas simply did not appear in English. Grenfell’s (2014) and Webb et al.’s (2002) point might be that though no fault of Bourdieu’s own, his works were not always immediately published in English, but of course, there is no fault here. The fault is more of the Anglo-centric nature of research during the later-twentieth century that was happy to take ideas from other languages/countries and then not be consistent with following the changes of these positions. The desire to apply theory where theory does not fit is also a necessary risk to consider when examining works that use not just Bourdieu, but any theorist. There is no point examining data through a new theoretical lens if it does not provide new information; there is no point looking at the same information from multiple angles if those angles still produce the same results (Reay, 2004b). My favourite quote regarding this topic comes from Pat Thomson, and I cite this quote often because it so aptly sums up the situation, who said that ‘theory cannot be draped over data like a tablecloth’ (Thomson, 2017, p. 114). For the researchers in education the temptation to use Bourdieu is perhaps even greater due to his focus on institutions and issues that impact on education. However, as I hope is clear in this book, Bourdieu might be the lens through which we look at the data, but his theories in this case are those that help us break down what marginalisation looks like to staff and students in higher education.

Bourdieu’s Thoughts on Theory While Bourdieu realised that he was contributing to new ways of thinking about education (new at least at the start of his work), he was also highly reflective of his own work. For example, as we have already touched on, he knew his life’s story was an unusual one to lead to a life in academia which immediately led him to examine what personal, social, and community factors led, or prevented, someone from entering a career or profession that was either ‘for them’ or ‘not for them’ (Bourdieu, 1962). This remained true for the entirety of Bourdieu’s career which led Grenfell to argue that (2014) Bourdieu was on ‘a mission to explain the social, political, and cultural practices that surrounded him’ (p. 15). Bourdieu also saw the rise of theory take place throughout his life, that is, that ‘good’ research

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had to include theory, and at the same time, he also knew that his own work and popularity were contributing to this factor. He knew he was famous, his publications, citations, invitations, and book sales were tangible evidence of that fact, but he knew this was leading to his work being applied where it did not fit, and as stated earlier, where it contributed nothing new to the data. The knowledge of the popularity of his theory, and how it was being applied, and the general approach to theory in social science research, led him to conclude that someone should never theorise for theory’s sake and that the application of his theories should only occur as ‘a response to an actual practical context’ (Wacquant, 1989, p. 50). Scholars around Bourdieu and his work knew that he had created a set of different theories, or thinking tools, that were so diverse that they could be used by people in different fields and in many different ways. In an interview, Bourdieu was asked if his goal was to set out and create ‘a set of thinking tools […] of wide, if not universal, applicability’ (Webb et  al., 2002, p.  47). Bourdieu accepted that he had created a set of thinking tools, but highlighted that this was not his intent, rather: The ground for these tools […] lies in research, in the practical problems and puzzles encountered and generated in the effort to construct a phenomenally diverse set of objects in such a way that they can be treated, thought of, comparatively. (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 160)

Bourdieu concluded by arguing that the true value of his research tools was only evident ‘through the results they yield (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p.  160). At the same time, however, Bourdieu also knew these results would mean different things to different people because his work could be applied in so many different ways. One researcher could take one of his theories and test them for theoretical soundness with the conclusion being further validation of his thinking, or even criticism and suggestions for how to improve the use and increase the yield of results for future scholars. Alternatively, other researchers may be generally satisfied with the soundness of the tools, have considered their issues within the study design, and then used Bourdieu’s tools as a way to make sense of the data. The latter is what this book has chosen. As the author, I have considered the criticisms of Bourdieu’s work, and in this chapter and the next, and in later chapters, the methodology of design and evaluation of the data has been conducted in ways to address those criticisms. Ultimately, this work is not attempting to provide a theoretical contribution, criticism, or update

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to Bourdieu’s ideas, it is using them to understand how and why marginalisation still exists in higher education, what its impacts are, and how, through understanding these issues, we might look to improve the future equity of the sector. As much as Bourdieu knew his work may be used for theoretical purposes, or as a way to examine data, these aspects also changed throughout his career. Earlier in this chapter we talked about Bourdieu studying philosophy, and how the importance or philosophy (and the humanities more widely) had come into question and in need of defence in the last few decades. Largely, this is because society (most often influenced by governments or those looking to reduce higher education costs) have increasingly ordered the value of higher education in terms of its immediate and direct societal benefits. Cancer research or school improvement research, for example, are types of research with direct benefits. The benefits of philosophy or sociology or history can be harder because they are not direct, they are about understanding what is happening, or has happened, to then aid in making advances in the future. Thus, we often see these disciplinary areas not result in direct change as some others do, but instead, they create and refine the tools that enact change. Dealing with this change was something Bourdieu had to contend with in his career. He was often left to defend the value of his work, or else how other people had used it—this was particularly the case in the later part of his career as social thought on universities and the social sciences grew (Wacquant, 1989). This was less apparent in the case of educational research because the connections were much clearer and seemed less tentative, perhaps due to Bourdieu working in education himself. How people used his work was something Bourdieu had no control over, however, he was dedicated to social change and while he welcomed and knew his work needed review, reform, criticism, and adjustment, he was also conscious of the fact that every time a researcher took his work and applied it to a dataset to make comment about his theory, this was an opportunity to work towards social change and improvement that may have been lost (Wacquant, 1989). Fortunately, Bourdieu was aware and warned against this practice in his interviews with Wacquant, and more recently Thomson (2017) warned against the practice, and so too did Grenfell (2014) who concluded that: Do not make Bourdieu more interesting than the research to which his ideas are being applied. Really, the life and times of a French intellectual who lived

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in the second half of the twentieth century are incidental to the use to which the ideas can be applied. (p. 227)

It is also worth noting that these warnings and cautions of how to use, and what to do with, Bourdieu’s work occurred despite Bourdieu himself rarely focusing on theory. Instead, almost all his work and initial ideas and reforms were developed and discussed by applying his methods to practical situations in the hope of understanding and/or improving them. Yet, criticism of theory, sociology, and questions over the value of understanding situations, and ignoring the fact that they are stepping stones to improving outcomes, continue to exist.

Bourdieu’s Role in the Evolution of Methods As a key figure in sociology during the latter-half of the twentieth century, Bourdieu’s work, ideas, and thinking are brought into the spotlight sometimes because his work was pivotal and revolutionary, and other times because of his popularity. Just as Hirst (1966) was considered one of the first to realise the importance of understanding a setting before looking to create theories to improve it, and Bourdieu’s work then aided in completing those theories to dissect and understand the structures and prejudices within a setting, the same is true where methods and methodology are concerned. It is not necessarily that Bourdieu was at the forefront, or aiming to inspire change. However, these changes were happening as his work developed and he grew in popularity. Thus, it is inevitable that what Bourdieu did as one of the first popular social scientists to work with new and evolving methodological ideas led to his work being studied to examine what he did, and he was subsequently asked about his methods and methodologies at length. At the same time though, Bourdieu knew this spotlight was on his work, and he appreciated that while he would have to defend his choices, he could also use this opportunity to promote his own ideas. Grenfell (2014) summarised this by stating that ‘Bourdieu’s discussions of knowledge and scientific method have been elements of a strategy to give himself the power to practice what he has preached’ (p. 37). This is in some ways a very clear trajectory in what Bourdieu was doing and where he fit in social science’s thinking revolution of the 1960s:

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1. O’Connor (1957) worked in a world where the theory was most important. If the theoretical work was sound, then it was assumed to be safe to apply the theory to the practical setting because the theory had to work because it was sound. 2. Hirst (1966) was one of the first to appreciate that this was wasteful because a theory only worked in the setting and with the participants that were tested. There were too many variables in an educational setting to assume that one theoretically sound concept in the tested settings would work in all settings. 3. Bourdieu may not have been the first, but he was one of the most popular (similar to Hirst) to realise that the starting point was not to create a theory and test it in a setting, the starting point was to completely understand the dynamics of power, privilege, who had it, and who did not, in a setting because this knowledge was the basis for change. The above simplifies the evaluation, but in an introductory way, it highlights what and why things were changing. Bourdieu realised that settings had dynamics, and people in a setting added to those dynamics, and they would all work together in different ways. Nevertheless, he also knew that the results of analysis of these groups and settings were predictable. The same people tended to succeed while the others were likely to struggle. Not always of course, there were exceptions to every rule—for example, Bourdieu would not have predicted a boy from a poor, rural, French farming village becoming a globally renowned theorist. However, he knew he was the exception to the rule, and he knew there was in fact dangers to people thinking that anyone can be an exception to the rule if they just worked hard enough because that is precisely not what Bourdieu’s work is about. Bourdieu’s work is about the fact that society limits, holds back, and prevents some people from even attempting to change their position, while it opens every gate and removes every hurdle that others face. Within this trajectory though, it is clear and understandable why methods, and approaches to methods, had to change. Methods started as ways to test theories; Bourdieu soon enough introduced methods, or altered existing ones, that could be used to understand the human element of situations and the lived experiences. In this, we see him take methods and ideas from the hard sciences and apply them to the social sciences and subsequently aid in bringing scientific rigor to the social sciences. Bourdieu was in many ways designing and reforming methods that could take in the

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infinite variables and people and social interactions, and yet created results that reliably predicted and dissected why these groups and people interacted in the way they did, and why some were destined to succeed, and others struggled to gain an increase in their position, if they were allowed into the setting at all.

Bourdieu’s Approach to Education Bourdieu’s work was largely dedicated to understanding how power and privilege work in social settings, and how someone’s likelihood of success in any setting could be determined largely from (or before) their birth due to their cultural trajectory. He knew he broke the mould in his own life, but he also knew the mould was rarely broken. He was additionally aware of the ideas that push most societies forward such as ‘try hard and you will be rewarded’, or ‘the best person wins’—notions that suggest effort = success and that merit is linked to increased social standing or career success. These were, in much of his work around society and community, the ideas that motivated him, and accordingly education tended to play a major role as a single point of interest in determining adult life, and/or, a factor that played a major role in someone’s wider trajectory into adulthood and career and life happiness. That Bourdieu felt education played such a major role in a child’s life trajectory is not unique. That compulsory schooling is one of the first social structures that a child experiences outside of the home is not a Bourdieusian idea, it is more the reality of a child’s life and development. It is also an idea of shifting priorities as Bourdieu may have been familiar with the concept of a child first leaving the home to attend compulsory schooling, where in the twenty-first century, it is much more common that children may have also experienced some form of outside school care (day care, kindergarten, etc.) before attending school. Where Bourdieu’s ideas begin to shift, however, is in the notion that schooling offers everyone the same opportunities; it was instead his argument that compulsory schooling is more likely to continue or amplify the family and community status quo into which the child was born (Bourdieu, 1977). Bourdieu thus wrote at length about the myth of merit in education— and it is these ideas that this book will largely use as a catalyst for discussion. To question the idea of merit in education is akin to casting doubt over the fabric of most societies and notion of potential success being an option for anyone who works hard. Bourdieu argued at length about why

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the hardest working student would not rise to the top of the class. Bourdieu instead used his ideas about habitus, capital, and field to demonstrate that before a child even entered the front gate of the school for the first time, the hierarchy of success within the class had already been determined by their parent’s wealth, occupations, and interests (Bourdieu, 1977, 1988). Some children had parents from knowledge-based occupations, others from labour-based employment. Some parents would have had the time and money to, for example, read to their children, teach them to read, and do maths before their compulsory schooling began, and are available to assist their children throughout their school years. Other parents might work long hours, they might do shift work, they may not see the value in providing additional learning or support to what goes on in school. The above examples are oversimplified to prove the point, but they highlight how schools are not equal places, and how they are much more likely to replicate or amplify a child’s home experience and ‘success’ of their parents. Or as Bourdieu put it, merit in education was not a result of ‘natural aptitude’ or hard work, but was instead the result of the production of ‘an investment of time and cultural capital’ by the individual’s family (Bourdieu, 1985, p. 48). Bourdieu’s ideas around compulsory schooling have been the basis for extensive work by researchers focused specifically on schooling being shaped by parents and community. As a starting point, people like Diane Reay and Pat Thomson evaluate the difficult role schools play in allowing students to grow in new ways that might more closely reflect new opportunities and merit and effort being rewarded. Furthermore, it should not come as a surprise that for compulsory schooling to have the ability to broaden the trajectory and opportunities of their students takes money. Bourdieu would tell us that it is not a coincidence that schools that need money to achieve these goals need funding they do not have, while schools already providing these opportunities often have ample funding. The cynical amongst us might suggest that is because the people that make the choices about society went to well-funded schools, and have children who went to well-funded schools, and they want to protect their own interests. However, Bourdieu would suggest that this is not a cynical approach, and this is exactly what is taking place. Society is controlled by a circle of power, and the circle will always protect itself (Bourdieu, 1977). With such staunch views on compulsory education, it should not come as a surprise that Bourdieu’s apprehension about who wins and who loses in higher education, or is even allowed through the front gates, is equally

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critical. His views originated from the fact he knew he did not fit in, and did not belong there in the view of the privileged people that controlled the space, and it had been through luck, academic grades, and scholarships that he entered a field where someone from his background would not usually have had the ability to access. This is a key point when discussing marginalisation because Bourdieu knew, or felt, that he was an outsider, and he often looked at higher education from an outsider’s perspective. Conversely, what he saw around him were a large number of people who were not critical or perplexed by higher education because it was their natural environment. There was no question that this is where they would go either as a student or academic, they believed they naturally deserved to be in that space. In Homo Academicus (1988), Bourdieu discussed his experiences studying people and events in higher education as being like someone at a zoo—staring in on unusual animals that you would not see in your everyday life. For him, this is true. The notion of universities, who went to them, who worked in them, and what happened inside was largely absent from his cultural trajectory. He had his own experiences, but he knew this was unusual so it led him to study the experiences of other people who Bourdieu noted (1988) as being far less likely to be inclined to study themselves (Webb et al., 2002). Nonetheless, that someone developed an interest in higher education as a field because they knew they did not fit in it properly and were surrounded by people who seemed to not question why they were included and felt they deserved to be there is a solid basis for where and why Bourdieu’s work is so clearly aligned with understanding how coming from a marginalised background fits within higher education. With such poignant experiences and a collection of theories to assess these issues, some discussion of Bourdieu’s primary thoughts and standpoints is relevant. Some of which are completely relevant to this book and will be drawn upon regularly throughout the following chapters, and some that will be used or discussed infrequently, but add to understanding the context by which Bourdieu looked to higher education. Bourdieu’s work on higher education does, however, primarily relate to the French system that he experienced, and that he started experiencing during the 1950s onwards, when we come to his work as we approach the mid-­ twenty-­first century. In some respects, this inevitably may lead to issues due to changes in society and expectations, but Webb et al. (2002) argue (and I am inclined to agree), that this is rare, and it is often quite evident

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which of Bourdieu’s ideas need updating, and in most instances, researchers have since made or suggested those changes. One of the first observations Bourdieu made of significance to this work is how being marginalised affected someone’s voice within a faculty of an institution. Bourdieu (1988) noted that universities are places of liberal thought, but he queried if this was true for marginalised academics or only for academics who fit in the institution and thus believed they deserved to be there. Bourdieu’s suggestion was that if you believed you deserved to be there, you were less worried about the security of your place and more inclined to speak up against the injustices you saw in the institution’s operations. However, if you did not fit, such as for those who knew they were on the outside and knew they were fortunate to have been allowed through the gate, the idea of speaking out, usually about the injustices that impacted on them or other marginalised groups around them, was a far more daunting task. It meant potentially jeopardising a position they felt they were lucky to have. Bourdieu put this situation more politely as he referred to those people who felt they could not speak out against the institution or higher education more widely as oblates—in religious terms, a word that describes people with high levels of dedication (Bourdieu, 1988). He saw these people as feeling a dedication to the institution, or an obligation to support it even when it was wrong, because they felt higher education had provided them with the opportunity to enter a system where they would have been excluded throughout most of the last 1000 years of history. It is also crucial to note that this obligation does not stem from an undefined or obscure fear of removal, Bourdieu knew that marginalised people being cautious of jeopardising their place in higher education is not only about acceptance in the sector, it is about what the sector, institution, and faculty offered. They knew they did not fit, and they may have been aware of injustices taking place. However, to speak out was also to speak out against a system that provided training for careers and subsequently life experiences that people from marginalised groups did not always have access to, and the number of marginalised people aspiring to these positions would not increase without representation. Therefore, in some respects, the pressure forcing marginalised people to not have a voice in higher education is a form of self-preservation, but it is also a way of staying silent now, so the crowd can grow and the voices become louder at a later date. Turning voices into action is an objective of this book. Marginalised people stayed quiet, they silently fought the battles of a sector that started

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to let them in but did not always do that much else to support them. These silent marginalised groups have now become the majority, and voices are starting to be heard as they demand change. This nonetheless highlights an area where Bourdieu had the right ideas around marginalisation, privilege, and how they worked in higher education. His reasoning for why these issues existed remains as accurate today as it did during the 1970s and 1980s when he first wrote and began reforming his theories. Nevertheless, though his ideas and reasoning were correct and are powerful tools that help us understand the power dynamics of higher education today, his concept of these problems were from a later-twentieth-century perspective, and subsequently his ideas around solutions have some gaps that need filling. The first concept he worked with that remains in name today, but less so in practice, is the idea of the liberal university and academic freedom. Many researchers would argue that the liberal university is dead, or remains in name only, or at best, remains but is a mere shadow of itself from decades before such as during Bourdieu’s life. Different researchers come at this argument from different angles, but most will use neoliberalism and the corporatisation of higher education as a catalyst (Jones, 2022). The societal desire for access to higher education grew during the 1960s and 1970s which led to an extreme growth in the number of community colleges in the United States, expansion beyond Oxford, Cambridge, and the Russell Group universities in England, and the construction of institutions in Australia away from the dominant Group of Eight research-­ intensive institutions (Esson & Ertl, 2016). By the 1990s, most regions were left with more university places than students, and the change in societal approaches to higher education had decreased government funding in many instances. Thus, repercussions of these actions were that competition for students had been created because enrolment numbers mattered, which led to the need to both increase advertising and marketing, start constructing facilities that would attract students, and more crucially, begin much more business-like approaches to university spending (Forsyth, 2014). Corporate approaches have led to employment reductions, and the idea of a ‘permanent’ or ‘tenured’ position no longer exists in the likes of Canada and Australia because anyone can be restructured out if it is for the good of the university’s financial health and sustainability (Blackmore, 2002, 2020; Cain & Leach, 2021; Bosetti & Heffernan, 2021). This means academic freedom and academic voice, and the idea and option of challenging the injustices people see in their research is not

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what it was in Bourdieu’s time. The liberal university might be a phrase that is still often tied to higher education, and I would suggest it is a notion politicians lean to when they want to cut funding and subsequently push the idea of universities as places of privilege doing obscure research that helps few people in society, but we live and operate in the world of the corporate university in the twenty-first century. So while Bourdieu had ideas about power and privilege, and what marginalisation looked like in the liberal university, the liberal university he pictured was very different to the heavily corporatised institutions we are experiencing in the twenty-first century. This is not necessarily an issue though because the issues and ideas Bourdieu identified remain the same in the modern era; if anything, they have become amplified and subsequently his ideas around power, and who gets the most out of higher education (either as a student or academic), are more prudent now than they ever have been before. However, his ideas around marginalisation and what that meant are slightly different to how we would perceive them today. Bourdieu was in the field for four decades, and in that time he would have seen immense changes in who was allowed into the academy. Nonetheless, when we look at the publication dates of his primary works and see that a majority of them are produced between the 1970s and 1980s (Homo Academicus in 1988), and a few in the 1990s, it becomes clear that Bourdieu was talking about a very specific type of person who did not fit the standard higher education mould. This is not his fault, or something he overlooked, it is simply the consequence of him working in a time when higher education remained significantly closed off to many people in society. Primarily, Bourdieu saw class and gender (in terms of man or woman, not in a modern sense of non-binary or gender fluid) as the two great obstacles that prevented people from entering and succeeding in higher education. This is evident from his major works and makes sense; women had slowly increased in number in higher education, in some fields more than others, but they were still on the periphery compared to men. Similarly, Bourdieu was focused on class and the implications to access and fitting into the university environment which reflected his own experience and struggles as someone who came from a non-traditional background. What Bourdieu spoke about to a much lesser extent is what marginalisation looked like to many other groups who were slowly entering the field. He rarely considered the implications of sexual identity, race, disability, or language, likely because these notions were rarely issues of major examination at that time. Or perhaps, people from these groups were so

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underrepresented they did not warrant discussion, or because these people knew they did not fit within the sector at that time; they downplayed and hid their true selves as much as possible. Each of these groups is also highly diverse, so it is not uncommon for Bourdieu to have considered the people from within a larger group who had succeeded to break into the sector. For example, gender was considered in terms of men and women, and disability has been evident in the higher education sector for decades, maybe even centuries, if we consider mobility issues (the need for a wheelchair or walking aids etc.). However, considerations of other genders have largely been non-existent until the twenty-first century, and inclusion of people with other disabilities has been rare until the same, modern period (Heffernan, 2022b; Moriña, 2017). Where this situation becomes more interesting, though, is that in some ways this highlights the robustness of Bourdieu’s work around higher education, power, privilege, and inclusion. He may not have been thinking about, or creating or reforming his ideas with consideration to the marginalised groups of people who have made their way into higher education today, but his theories remain exceptionally relevant. While these new groups now have access to higher education, they are not achieving the same successes as their peers and that is happening because higher education was originally, and remains, designed for the benefit of the privileged. In higher education and through Bourdieu’s work, we see that the implication of not being in that position of power and privilege is essentially the same for people from all marginalised groups. They will be somewhat ostracised for the same reasons, and Bourdieu provides us with the tools to determine precisely how far removed someone is from the privileged minority, why they are removed, and if there is any method that may bring equity to the sector. Bourdieu also knew that staff and students were not unaware of these implications, and he argued (1990), and others have conducted more recent studies and subsequently agreed (Hurst, 2010), that this knowledge impacts on the university selection and choice of academics and students. The first step to this process is perhaps predictable: the lack of choice. Someone from a marginalised group without the privilege, money, and networks that their peers may have access to are far less likely to have a choice in the institution they attend and instead their selection is much more likely to be determined by which institutions they have access to, or are permitted to enter. The idea of having no choice in the selection provides an opportune time to return to Bourdieu’s (1988) notion of oblates, and people feeling a strong sense of obligation to their institution when

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they know the institution selected them, and they did not have the power or privilege to make their own choice. Even when we encounter students and academics with a choice, however, researchers have noted that it is not uncommon to see them select the option where they know they will fit rather than choosing the most prestigious university option available to them. Hurst (2010) examined this in relation to students from working-class backgrounds and students of colour. Even when they had elite and prestigious university options to select from, they would regularly choose a less prestigious or elite option. This had nothing to do with performance, or fear of not being on an equal academic level to their classmates, this was a conscious social choice. These students knew that based on a social choice, they would likely have a more difficult time fitting in, and they also knew that academic success was not solely about grades, it was also about connections. Choosing to enter a classroom where most other students would have instant connections because of their culture, their middle classness, and that they went to the same types of schools and had the same types of family experiences would put someone who was not part of that world in a deficit position. The same is true of the academic experience. Having a choice in where you work is an absolute privilege; that someone could ‘choose’ to work at a particular institution is a luxury reserved for either the most privileged and well-connected academic, or one whose work places them in perhaps the top 1% of academics in terms of citations or grants acquired. However, if we take a step back from choice, and even consider how academics might aspire to work at a particular type of university, we again see Bourdieu’s ideas of cultural trajectory come into play. These notions are also particularly apt in a book about marginalisation in academia, but there are so often clear connections between someone’s cultural trajectory, and the roles they might have access to in higher education. Bourdieu knew that institutions were broadly research-focused or teaching-focused, and there was an almost infinite number of options in between. The most research-intensive institutions in any area, or the global sector, tend to be the most prestigious. So again, Bourdieu knew this was another factor that would limit someone’s options not by their aspiration, or efforts, but to their cultural trajectory. Due to the role networks and privilege play, and for the reasons outlined by Hurst (2010) in the paragraphs above, some people did not have the choice to begin their career in a research-intensive university. Some people, with the least privilege or networks, or ability to travel for study, may have also had no choice

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but to enrol in their nearest institution, even if it was a solidly teachingfocused university. Thus, in making this choice, or more to the point, having their cultural trajectory dictate their movements, we see early career academics making choices at the start of their career that dictates their options much later on, and potentially for the rest of their career. If someone begins their career in a teaching-focused university, they will be given a workload primarily dedicated to teaching, and likely without the support and services available at a research-focused institution where the academics are also likely to be given more research-focused workloads (Heffernan, 2022a). Bourdieu’s argument is largely that choice for students or academics really existed because choice is determined by cultural trajectory. I will also interject here and say that I agree with Bourdieu, and note that the people who claim that choice exists are usually those with the privilege and networks to have a choice (Harris et al., 2022). Unfortunately, it is this same group of people who tend to have a trajectory to leadership and subsequently making these claims that sound positive and equitable, but in reality, choice in higher education, for students or academics, is a by-product of privilege. As Bourdieu (1988) concluded, anyone can apply for a position at a university as a student, or an academic position once they have their doctorate, but their success will ultimately be determined by their cultural trajectory and how their trajectory pairs with the institution. We can see this trait hidden by using words like ‘merit’, but merit is really a way of asking the question ‘do you have the privilege to possess the capital this institution desires?’ Grenfell (2014) argues that as fragmented and broken as this system might be, particularly for those without privilege and networks, at least people are usually aware of their cultural trajectory, how they fit, and what that means for their aspirations as a student or as an academic. Therefore, breaking into the sector is one hurdle, and it can be an immense hurdle and anyone who makes it deserves congratulations though we should have systems aimed at removing those barriers. Nonetheless, Grenfell knew that not even breaking into the sector would change someone’s trajectory— the idea of coming into a teaching-focused university and finishing a career at an elite research-focused institution was unlikely and bound to be significantly more difficult than for someone who began their career at a research-focused institution. Choice, and selection, and movement in higher education is tied to privilege, and for the majority of people who do not possess these traits, they are much more likely to work within the

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spaces where they fit. This is a critical point to reiterate in a book about marginalisation, and the fact that higher education is now dominated by a marginalised majority in terms of numbers, but not in power. The elite powers that govern higher education have allowed marginalised students and academics to grow in number, to boost enrolments and equity targets in the workplace, but they have never relinquished their power. They have never looked to create a system that would introduce choice, or introduce merit as a true factor in enrolment and employment, and not use merit as a cloak to hide advantages of privilege. It is of course predictable that they would not. Higher education has a 1000-year history built around one generation of privilege after another. The greatest fear of an industry built on privilege is the introduction of merit, and a world where privilege and networks do not remain the primary factors in success and rising to the top of the hierarchy (Heffernan, 2020; Heffernan & Harpur, 2023). This is why marginalised academics and students have remained largely on the outside of the professoriate, leadership roles, and desirable research positions, but the tide is turning. Our role now is to ensure that collectively the marginalised majority can come together to force change. This may mean changes for those accustomed to meteoric rises through privileged networks, but every time the higher education sector takes a step towards a more equitable existence, it becomes a more integrated part of society and the community, and a larger group of people will see and appreciate the work that goes on inside and how it is dedicated to positive social change.

Summary Bourdieu started forming ideas about society and the implication of power and privilege at a time when social scientists began to realise that society was not something a wider theory or concept could be applied to if they wanted detailed answers. When it came to education, this saw Bourdieu argue that improved schooling could not be done by applying broad pedagogical changes that had been determined by positivist theories because these changes did not consider the variances of the settings, or those entering the setting. Bourdieu had these ideas and worked towards understanding people, populations, and settings because he knew he was the exception to the rule, he knew he did not fit in, he knew that hiding behind the veil of merit was a system largely dedicated to the continuation and prospering of

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a privileged few. Bourdieu also started exploring these ideas as the mass market higher education system began to take shape (Harris et al., 2022) and researchers needed to start asking questions about why access (for some at least) was not equating to equal success for all. These are the questions which we are still grappling with today, more people are gaining access to higher education today than almost ever before (certainly that was the case before the interruption of COVID), but equity in success across different groups is not present. Bourdieu asked those questions, and gave potential answers in the latter-twentieth century, but people did not listen, maybe because the affected people were too low in number. However, in the 2020s, as the marginalised majority has taken shape, it is Bourdieu’s tools that will help us understand why the same problems still exist, what aspects we might be able to solve regarding these issues, and why we are more likely to be successful with a majority of the sector behind the cause.

References Blackmore, J. (2002). Globalisation and the restructuring of higher education for new knowledge economies: New dangers or old habits troubling gender equity work in universities? Higher Education Quarterly, 56(4), 419–441. https:// doi.org/10.1111/1468-­2273.00228 Blackmore, J. (2020). The carelessness of entrepreneurial universities in a world risk society: A feminist reflection on the impact of Covid-19 in Australia. Higher Education Research & Development, 39(7), 1332–1336. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/07294360.2020.1825348 Bosetti, L. & Heffernan, T. (2021). Diminishing hope and utopian thinking: faculty leadership under neoliberal regime. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 53(2), 106–120. https://doi.org/10.1080/0022062 0.2021.1910219 Bourdieu, P. (1962). Célibat et condition paysanne. Etudes rurales, 5(6), 32–136. https://doi.org/10.3406/rural.1962.1011 Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice (R. Nice, Trans.). Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1985). The forms of capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 46–58). Greenwood. Bourdieu, P. (1988). Homo academicus (P. Collier, Trans.). Polity. Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice (R. Nice, Trans.). Stanford University Press. Bourdieu, P. (2005). The social structures of the economy (C. Turner, Trans.). Polity. Bourdieu, P. (2007). Sketch for a self-analysis (R. Nice, Trans.). Polity.

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Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. Polity Press. Cain, T. R., & Leach, E. A. (2021). Removing faculty: Patterns and processes of retrenchment and restructuring. AERA Open, 7. https://journals.sagepub. com/doi/pdf/10.1177/23328584211058472 Esson, J., & Ertl, H. (2016). No point worrying? Potential undergraduates, study-­ related debt, and the financial allure of higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 41(7), 1265–1280. https://doi.org/10.1080/0307507 9.2014.968542 Forsyth, H. (2014). A history of the modern Australian university. NewSouth Publishing. Grenfell, M. (2014). Pierre Bourdieu: Key concepts. Routledge. Grenfell, M., & James, D. (1998). Bourdieu and education: Acts of practical theory. Routledge. Harris, J., Smithers, K., Spina, N., & Heffernan, T. (2022). Disrupting dominant discourses of the other: Examining experiences of contract researchers in the academy. Studies in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/0307507 9.2022.2105831 Heffernan, T. (2020). ‘There’s no career in academia without networks’: Academic networks and career trajectory. Higher Education Research and Development. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2020.1799948 Heffernan, T. (2022a). Bourdieu and higher education: Life in the modern university. Springer. Heffernan, T. (2022b). Forty years of social justice research in Australasia: Examining equity in inequitable settings. Higher Education Research and Development, 41(1), 48–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2021.2011152 Heffernan, T., & Harpur, P. (2023). Discrimination against academics and career implications of student evaluations: University policy versus legal compliance. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.108 0/02602938.2023.2225806 Hirst, P. (1966). Educational theory. In J.  Tibble (Ed.), The study of education (pp. 29–58). Routledge and Kegan Paul. Hurst, A. (2010). The burden of academic success: Managing working-class identities in college. Lexington Books. Jones, S. (2022). Universities under fire: Hostile discourses and integrity deficits in higher education. Palgrave. Moriña, A. (2017). Inclusive education in higher education: Challenges and opportunities. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 32(1), 3–17. O’Connor, D. (1957). An introduction to the philosophy of education. Routledge and Kegan Paul.

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Reay, D. (2004a). Gendering Bourdieu’s concepts of capitals? Emotional capital, women and social class. The Sociological Review, 52(2), 57–74. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1467-­954x.2005.00524.x Reay, D. (2004b). ‘It’s all becoming a habitus’: Beyond the habitual use of habitus in educational research. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 25(4), 431–444. https://doi.org/10.1080/0142569042000236934 Schirato, T., & Roberts, M. (2018). Bourdieu: A critical introduction. Allen & Unwin. Thomson, P. (2017). Educational Leadership and Pierre Bourdieu. Routledge. Wacquant, L. (1989). Towards a reflexive sociology: A workshop with Pierre Bourdieu. Sociological Theory, 7(1), 26–63. https://doi.org/10.2307/202061 Webb, J., Schirato, T., & Danaher, G. (2002). Understanding Bourdieu. Sage.

CHAPTER 3

Bourdieu’s Primary Theories

This chapter explores Bourdieu’s key concepts and relates them to higher education so that we have a lens through which to examine the data and studies in the remainder of this book. For a book not specifically about Bourdieu, I concede that we have spent an awful lot of time exploring the ideas and impact of a sociologist who began working in the space 70 years ago, and died more than 20 years ago, but having this lens and point of reference is vitally important to this work. Yes, we have spoken (and will continue to speak) about Bourdieu a lot, but as the next chapters begin to examine the history of higher education, and the history of the sector’s relationships with people from different marginalised groups, Bourdieu’s ideas become pivotal in highlighting to what extent these occurrences were not by chance, and they were not unpredictable. We will see how and why opening the gate, and allowing someone from a marginalised group into the inherently middle-class white setting of higher education is a positive step, but it does not equate to equity. Opening one gate does not make up for the fact that many other gates to academic success for students, or career success for academics, remain firmly shut. This chapter primarily looks at habitus, capital, and field, and introduces some other ideas that may be beneficial for readers to understand their own settings. For each aspect we discuss, it is important to reiterate that journal articles, book chapters, and books have been written by Bourdieu and/or others about each topic individually, so we really are

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only exploring the surface of each topic. Nonetheless, this discussion will provide the basic information about each topic and the mechanics of how each concept fits together to break down issues within society.

Habitus Bourdieu did not create the idea of habitus or the notions around its use to describe someone’s circumstances, but when we hear the word today, it is inevitably his understanding of the term and its use that is the dominant definition (Bourdieu, 1993). Like with all of Bourdieu’s terms, habitus can be defined and explored by way of examining many journal articles or entire books dedicated to the topic, but the core principles can also be explained rather simply. For the purpose of this book, and for the sake of laying out the basic Bourdieusian principles to help us understand what marginalisation looks like in higher education, we will focus on the latter. However, I encourage anyone whose interest has been piqued by these ideas to explore them further because they really will revolutionise how you look at people and social settings, and understand who and why some people rise to the top with minimal efforts, and why others struggle despite their best intentions and efforts. In its simplest form, habitus is the combination of the situation and advantages (or lack of advantages) that someone is born into, raised in, and surrounded by throughout their life. These elements result in a life and characteristics that are predictable, and tell us with some certainty what direction someone’s life may take (Bourdieu, 1994). The notion of habitus as a predictor of life experiences is not fool proof, far from it; Bourdieu was an example of someone’s whose habitus as a child did not equate to their adult occupation and experiences. At the same time, habitus is not about stereotypes. It is about examining the many elements of their existence to see the structured and structuring structures of someone’s life (Bourdieu, 1994). I remember reading ‘structured and structuring structures’ for the first time and being overwhelmed, with my immediate thought being that it seemed unnecessarily complex theoretical jargon. However, I am pleased report that structured and structuring structures are actually a quite basic framework that is excellent at helping us understand where and how someone will fit into a particular setting—and it is particularly useful in higher education settings. A basic example is the best way to explore structured and structuring structures.

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Let us begin with two university undergraduate students who want to become history professors. However, one attends an elite university and both of their parents are history professors, and the other attends a less prestigious small city university and their parents work in unskilled occupations. If we, as social science researchers, had to make a prediction with no other information, it would be that the first student is more likely to succeed at their aspiration. Or, if they both succeed, it would be the first student who would succeed more quickly and rise through the ranks at a more rapid pace and in more prestigious universities. I know it sounds stereotypical to make that assumption, and Bourdieu knew that too, and he knew that he was the second student in the example who came from very humble beginnings and broke the trend (Bourdieu, 1988). Bourdieu nonetheless also knew that habitus is the extension of someone’s social setting and advantages, so of course someone whose parents are history professors is more likely to be successful at pursuing this career because their whole life, even before their birth, has given them the habitus to understand what it is to be a history professor, how to pursue this career, what steps to take, and they would have had a life-time of networks to build and rely on to make this happen. We can apply the scaffolding of structured and structuring structures to each example to show how habitus is likely to reflect success for someone with, and then without, capital (privilege) in their required field (in this case, academia). Therefore, in the example of the student whose parents are history professors we can see that their habitus is: Structured by the events of their life. In this example, this means being born into a house dedicated to learning and education. The student likely received every assistance with their schooling due to their parent’s focus on education. The student likely attended schools with strong histories of most students attending elite universities, and when the student arrived at university, they would have had most of a lifetime being around their parent’s social circles (which inevitably included many academics) that would have shown them the path, and provided them with support and assistance in pursuing their hope of becoming a history professor. Thus, the structured, of structured and structuring structures, is about someone’s past to their present, and how all the events around them, and that guide them, aid in their life going in a certain general direction. The student with history professor parents was always on the trajectory towards a professional career. That is the career path their parents would have envisaged, it is the one they would

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know how to help them with, and when the child reached school age, and certainly high school, attending university and gaining a professional career would have been the intended career path of many of their peers. The structuring, of structured and structuring structures, is about the future. People are not born and their future random; people are born and their future is much more likely to replicate and build upon (in the middle-­ classes at least) what was/has happened in the generation before. A family’s composition in terms of money, knowledge, and connections is a good indication of the future. What options does the family’s habitus open? Are they able to only open the same doors for their children, more doors, or fewer? This is largely about habitus needing capital to open doors. In the example of the student becoming a history professor, the structuring of their habitus is because clearly the child of two history professors will be able to build off of their parents’ careers and contacts. They were thus raised in a certain, structured, way that led them to education and a professional career, but once they selected this option, their habitus was structuring because those structured elements of their habitus aided in their aspiration. The connection and predictability of these events is the structures of structured and structuring structures. The structures are a guide, an example of what directions are possible for someone’s future to take. It is not quite about their future being as well defined as being on a set of railway tracks, but what direction their life is likely to go in is certainly going to follow a relatively clear path. Therefore, in the example of the student with history professor parents, the structures of their habitus was always about them likely having a professional career, and on top of that, an academic career would fall well within their trajectory as they would have seen the benefits of this career to their parents, and their parents friends. Yes, variations will occur, and sometimes significant changes in direction may happen (Bourdieu’s own life is testament to that), however, Bourdieu’s point remains—for most people, most of the time, their life does not occur by chance and great variations do not happen. People are born into a certain set of circumstances, and those circumstances put them on a certain trajectory. It is also dangerous to think about, or focus on, the examples in life or that we see around us where people have broken the trajectory. This is not about diminishing their achievements, but a focus on someone breaking away from their trajectory is the exception to the rule. Focusing on these events allows governments to emphasise the notion that those who work hard will succeed, when that is not the case. Those people had circumstances that combined to allow them to break through structural barriers—the exact barriers created by class and privilege that governments rarely wish to address, and are the barriers that will keep most people stuck within the bounds of their cultural trajectory.

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The above example is extremely basic, purposely clear, and stereotypical in how someone might see someone else’s life progress; but it is the clarity and neatness of the example which helps illuminate Bourdieu’s thinking. The structured and structuring structures of habitus become extremely clear when we examine a positive example where habitus opened doors and allowed someone the future to which they aspired. Nevertheless, we started this discussion with two students hoping to become a history professor, one with parents who were history professors and attended an elite institution, and another who came from a working-class background and attended a significantly less prestigious university. If we think about how structured and structuring structures have not favoured this person, and how their habitus has led to a series of closed gates (that were opened for the student with history professor parents) we can see how habitus is limiting, and can deny aspiration. For the student from the working-class background, their habitus has been structured by parents who do not have professional (what some may call white-collar) careers. Their parents perhaps cannot envisage their child attending university or pursuing a professional career because that future is so far removed from their own habitus. Or perhaps, their parents are entirely dedicated to their child following this career path and are as encouraging as they can be, but this is not likely to produce the benefits that other parents can produce. Unlike the student from the first example, the working-­class parents will unlikely be able to use their connections to help their child, they will not have experience in a professional/academic setting, they will not be able to use their capital to assist their child. They might be able to support their child emotionally, but they will not be able to provide the slew of tangible/professional advantages that the middle-­ class student received. Therefore, the working-class student’s habitus will be structuring (remembering that the structuring of structured and structuring structures is about the future) because their family, their life, and their experiences have not put them on a cultural trajectory towards becoming a history professor. That is not to suggest that the task is impossible, and universities have taken great steps in ensuring that university study is more of an option for more people, but the working-class student’s habitus is not going to aid in their aspirations like they would if they were from the middle classes. This leads us to the structure of the working-class student’s habitus which was not towards a professional career in academia. Even before their

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birth, the challenges they were to face in pursuing this career, or potentially any professional career, were clear and predictable. It was never impossible, which is exactly how tropes about ‘working hard’ begin, but this student was destined to have a much more difficult time, and experience many more barriers than their privileged peers; and as this book will attest, the problems do not end once someone enters their dream career. From getting contract work, to rising through the ranks, to getting grants and tenure or a permanent position, people without privilege operating in a privileged setting will face continuous obstacles that have been removed for their privileged counterparts. The final point to note about these examples and how people think about working class versus middle class is that these areas have so often been largely, if not entirely, determined by money and the notion that a lack of income would restrict the opportunities to those from the working class (Laurison & Friedman, 2016). In recent decades, however, the ideas around working class and middle class have changed because being working class, or the notion of the blue-collar worker, is no longer connected to ideas of lower incomes. Many working class occupations now have salaries comparable or higher to what have been seen as middle-class occupations since the mid-twentieth century. This is important to consider because income has been tied to habitus since its inception (at least as Bourdieu used it) and there was a suggestion that working class prohibited opportunity because of income, but that is no longer the case in every example (Manstead, 2018). Though, where this situation gets complicated is that even if we remove income as a parameter from altering form a working-class career to a middle-class career, removing that hurdle does not solve the problem. Education (as a student or employee) is a middle-­ class space. Regardless of income level, the habitus of a working-class student may be at odds with their teacher’s middle-classness, or the social activities and pastimes of their privileged and middle-class classmates. Thus, the point remains that while in decades of research an inherent connection has been made between working class and middle class and the difference in economic capital, when in fact this barrier in many instances has been removed (Heffernan, 2022b). Bourdieu did not account for this specific issue, but he did know that people were rarely entirely siloed into a space, and instead, someone’s habitus could work on a sliding scale. For example, a working-class student with economic capital would be in a better situation as compared to a working-class student without economic capital. A child who lived

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without economic capital but had a parent employed in a middle-class field, such as a library assistant, administration, or a teacher’s aide may not have the middle-class financial capital, but they would have access to knowledge, instruction, and maybe even network connections about achieving in a middle-class space. These infinite variables that can shape the habitus of each person in a field is why Bourdieu’s toolbox of ideas is so useful to researchers and those wishing to gain a more informed idea of how society and communities are shaped. If we look at a cohort of students on the first day of an undergraduate course at an elite university, they may have all met the criteria to enter that field. Yet they are far from equal, and even though there might be some similarities in all their cultural trajectories on that first day, Bourdieu shows us why we can make rather accurate predictions about who will succeed and why they are likely to succeed. Bourdieu (1977) argues that this is about who has well-informed habitus. Every student in the class may have had the habitus to enter the class, but it is those with well-informed habitus that are most likely to succeed because as we have discussed, not all habitus is created equal. Some students will be in the class because they attended expensive private schools with small classes, and private tutors, and parents who encouraged their education. They are now enrolled in university and will be funded by their parents who pay their tuition, accommodation, and living costs which allows the student to focus on their studies. These students know how to succeed in a privileged setting, and they have the available time to familiarise themselves with their professors and will likely have many aspects in common. Other students will have had little educational support, but received the grades to enter the prestigious university nonetheless. They may have received a scholarship to cover tuition, but now they need to work a part-time job, or several, to afford accommodation and food which takes them away from their studies. These are of course widely stereotypical examples, but they again demonstrate how vastly different habitus can impact on someone’s trajectory, even if at a single point in time, many people appear to be in a similar position. Some people will also have a habitus that sets them up for success, while others will have to work at it and the connections might not be instant, and for every extra piece of effort, their privileged peers are continuing to gain traction in the environment due to their uninhibited habitus. Where this gets even more difficult to gauge and understand is that a field is not a set space. Bourdieu regularly spoke in metaphors and often

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talked about the habitus of players on a sports field. However, though we have explored a little about how habitus impacts on someone in a field, unlike a sports field, a Bourdieusian field is not a stagnant object. This makes the habituses that benefit most, and the types of capital a field most rewards, a changing quantity. It is predictable, but as we will see, it changes.

Field In exploring habitus, capital, and field, we began with habitus because habitus is shaped by someone’s upbringing, and ultimately by the capital they possess. However, as the objective of this chapter is to understand these concepts for the sake of being able to break down social settings and situations, before we examine capital, we will look at field. This is because every aspect of someone’s life culminates in their habitus, and they will have aspects of capital relating to every facet of their life, but only some of these aspects of capital will be relevant in a field. Therefore, dissecting the notion of a field helps break down what a particular field or social setting might value, might be looking for, and what capital will specifically increase an agent’s position. Understanding how fields operate as a first step outlines why capital, and certain types of capital, are more important in certain situations. In this chapter we have already talked about what a field is; the field of a classroom, faculty, university, even the field of higher education, but it is what goes on inside the field that is most interesting because many things can be happening in a single field. Bourdieu’s (1990b) example of a sports field might be an overly simple example to prove the point, but I would suggest it does the job quite well. The field of a sports field might primarily include players, but it also includes the referee, the staff on the side line, the coaching staff and managers; all people who belong on the field, and yet all groups that have had their different habituses lead them to have a position to be on the field, and yet their positions on this singular field are different. Furthermore, even within a group that belongs on the field, there will be untold subgroups. Players, for example, might be ranked overall with the most famous players at the top, but they can also be categorised by position such as defender, mid-fielder, striker. Another key aspect about fields that Bourdieu (1990b) knew was clear, and was especially the case in higher education (1988), is that fields were also competitive. Groups may vie for position, individuals within groups

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may seek out ways to use their capital to increase their rank, and some may do anything they can to get ahead. That higher education is a competitive field will come as little surprise to anyone in academia. However, it is not simply the case that academics are a competitive group of people (though that is somewhat true), Bourdieu (1990b) and others (Grenfell, 2014; Grenfell & James, 1998; Heffernan, 2020; Schirato & Roberts, 2018; Webb et  al., 2002) emphasise that fields are destined to be competitive when a higher place in the hierarchy leads to career advantage. In academia, we know the basic forms of capital that are broadly prized in the field such as publication and grant record, profile, media profile, and teaching performance and awards. However, benefit can also be gained through network advantage (Harris et al., 2022) and every combination of the aforementioned capitals can contribute to someone’s place increasing. It should also be mentioned that climbing the field is not just about rank, it is about tangible benefits. In a faculty, the higher in a field someone is might increase the chance of them being able to select their own classes, dictate their timetable, perhaps even influence how much time they teach compared to research if they have enough capital as a researcher behind them. It also opens doors for attending conferences, institutional funding, and of course, the very quantifiable advantage of increasing the pace of promotion and a higher salary. These advantages can be viewed as singular, but of course, even smaller advantages can also be pulled together to make a positive change in someone’s standing. This is because promotion, a more prestigious role, and more research time, are not small advantages and will impact on someone’s life and career potential, they are worth fighting for (Heffernan & Bosetti, 2020a, 2020b, 2021). One of the aspects of fields that make things more challenging is that fields can exist within fields, and fields can overlap, and yet these different fields can have different priorities. Therefore, in a faculty there will be a general hierarchy that begins with the dean at the top and ends with casual/sessional staff at the bottom. People in between are for the most part likely ordered by their position (lecturer, senior lecturer, professor, etc.), and within each role people are most likely ordered by publication number, prestige, grants, academic and teaching prizes. However, there will still be many fields within the faculty that may slightly alter the field in those settings. In the field of a teaching or leadership meeting, those people with leadership roles and with teaching awards, experience, or those ‘known for their teaching’ are likely to shift in the order above those ‘known for their research’. Conversely, in a meeting about research,

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someone will not gain capital from being a course coordinator or program leader. In fact, despite the complexity of these roles, that conducting this work has taken the person away from research has likely led to their decline in the research field’s hierarchy. It is the fact that some fields, and sub-fields within a field, do not assign value to some practices that only adds further challenges to understanding fields because fields are not equitable places. On top of this, agents do not enter a field from the same starting point (Thomson, 2017) and this is especially true when discussing the impact of marginalisation in higher education. As we have already discussed, students do not enter the classroom with equal footing. Some will have the habitus to succeed in higher education and that is because their habitus pairs with the capital the field of the classroom prefers. The same is true of academics, and again, with no information the field of a faculty will rank them, and they will be ranked on as much, or as little, information as possible (Bourdieu, 1990b). Thus, if two newly employed lecturers enter their first faculty meeting together, having just graduated from their doctoral programs, they will immediately be ranked. They may be ranked by the prestige of the university they gained their doctorate from, they may be ranked by any prizes they have received, or they may be ranked by whom they know—does one know the professors and senior staff and the other not? These scenarios demonstrate that the moment an agent walks into the classroom as a student or into the faculty as an academic. How each is ranked, and what their likelihood of success will be, is a matter of working through the available information, and the more information being available, the more researchers can know about a situation and make their informed judgements. However, examining someone entering a field means examining their habitus and the field’s values at a single point in time. This in itself is a difficult scenario because it is based on available information and the information available is likely to be minimal. This situation nonetheless becomes significantly more difficult for researchers to assess once we begin looking not at a single point in time, but at trajectories and potential trajectories. Once researchers begin having to account for the ever-changing capital and cultural trajectory of agents, in fields that themselves have ever-changing priorities in what capital they value most, the role of the social scientist becomes exponentially more complicated. Bourdieu knew this, and considering this information was a task that shaped his career and that of many researchers since. The simplest way to think about the fact that fields change in the capital they value is by

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considering that fields are not made, they are set, and they are set first by those who created them, and then by those who are in them (Albright et al., 2017). Thinking about fields being made becomes a little clearer if we consider how and why a field was created. If this information is available, or predictable, it becomes much easier to consider what types of capital are likely to be valued, and therefore, how agents are likely to operate within the field, and what activities (capital) they need to foster themselves a higher position in the hierarchy. When focusing on established fields like those within a university, such as the field of a faculty or a department, it is unlikely that the origin of the original composition of agents, and thus those who defined the field, is going to be known because it was established decades ago, if not centuries. As an example, the creating of a new department would tell us a lot about how fields are formed and shaped. Once again, the important thing to note is that fields are dictated by those within them. Therefore, if the newly created department contains a large number of high-profile researchers, then the department is likely to place a lot of capital in the value of research. If a majority of the new department are focused on teaching excellence, then teaching awards or being known for innovative practices is likely the capital that will be sought. The creation of a field thus has implications to how it grows or evolves. The established research-intensive department is likely to seek out other high-profile research academics if the field expands, or if a member leaves and needs to be replaced. However, if this new hire is a global leader, then the department’s field will value research capital even more. If the new hire is research-active but not in a major way as they do focus strongly on their teaching, then the value of research capital may diminish a little. What we see with fields and them being set by those within them, and the fact that they have ever changing borders, is that fields can change. However, that change will be dictated by those within the field, and large changes are likely to take ample time to occur due to the process of the people within the field having to change their values, or people within the field being replaced by those with new expectations. That people within the field are likely to find new members, or replace old ones, with people that fit the same criteria is an element of what Bourdieu (2000) referred to as reproduction. Put simply, new members of a field will not be chosen at random, and will not be selected via a broad criterion, they will instead be selected by people within the field for possessing capital that will reproduce the capital that the field, and thus those

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within it, value most. As a result, reproduction is an obstacle to who can enter the field. The research-intensive department will likely only make space for other research-intensive scholars, and the teaching-focused department will have a primary focus on any potential member’s teaching history. This is not about personality, or skill, or capability, this is about the field reflecting the capital of its members, and its members capital reflecting that which is valued by the field. Bourdieu (2000) was nonetheless also aware that when fields changed, they could change for various reasons. Collective shifts over time that reflect the values of new members to the field, or changing views of existing members, are perhaps the most straightforward. However, fields have hierarchies, and those with the most capital are at the top of the hierarchy and thus fields can also be moved by the wishes of the influential. A faculty is the easiest way to think about this scenario. The dean in most situations will have the most capital and direct influence over the field of the faculty. If a current dean is focused evenly on teaching and research, then those within the field know that their time needs to be divided between these two practices because the field of their faculty attributes capital to both teaching and research. However, if the faculty gains a new dean, and that dean is known for their research profile and is currently at a research-­ intensive university leading a faculty of world-renowned scholars, then they are likely to take the direction of their new faculty more towards research than towards teaching. For those in the faculty below the dean, they also know what is likely to happen. The new dean is likely to enter the faculty and increase research time to the best researchers and make extra funding available for research assistants and conference presentations available because these actions will aid in growing the research profile of the faculty. However, those in the field likely will not need to see these actions to alter how they operate: they will self-regulate. With a new dean entering the faculty who is known for research, those already in the field will know that an alteration to the capital valued is coming. It will lead those at the lower end of the hierarchy to know that they need to improve their performance to stay within the area of acceptability in terms of research performance. While for those at the top, they will know that this shift in the field’s borders will cause everyone to lift their performance, and thus, so too must they if they wish to stay towards the pinnacle of the faculty’s hierarchy. The example of a new dean is an example of a field changing predictably, because who is in the field, where they sit in the hierarchy, and what

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they value will alter what the field values. Every faculty has a dean, the dean will always be influential, and so they will have a controlling influence on what capital is valued. Fields become slightly more challenging to understand, and predict, when unpredictable changes occur. Unpredictable changes to the capital a field values can come through various means in higher education. They can be within the realms of academia such as a faculty securing or losing a globally influential scholar in the field. Their presence will aid in the faculty’s capital so their addition or subtraction will make a difference to how people view the faculty. Yet, changes can also be political in terms of funding, grant, or tuition rules. These decisions might be made regarding universities rather than an individual faculty, but the repercussions of anything to do with finances, funding, and distribution will have a faculty impact. It will change staff numbers, workload allocations, and lower finances often result in more teaching and less research, or (as we will discuss often in the coming chapters) the privileged researchers being streamed into research while others take control of the teaching responsibilities. Of course, in the mid-2020s, we have also experienced one of the greatest unpredictable circumstances that the globe has faced with COVID-19. As this book is being written in 2023, it is difficult to predict what the long-term impact of COVID will be on higher education and different countries and systems will have varying recovery strategies. Nonetheless, what we have seen between 2020 and 2023 is a good demonstration of how unpredictable changes can impact on the sector, on universities, and on faculties. Reductions in funding, reductions in student numbers, international options for students, and minimising of support programs due to austerity measures was the norm across much of the globe, and job losses were substantial. That job losses occurred should, sadly, not come as a surprise. The objective of the university is to remain financially viable, and a pivotal part of that is to ensure student numbers are high (Doidge & Doyle, 2020). University management was not about to cannibalise itself, thus, while highly paid executives remained in their positions, programs to attract students needed to continue, facilities half-built or planned often continued to entice students following the pandemic, it is clear the disposable part of the system was the academics and staff who complete the daily operations. These were the people fired in groups of tens of thousands across the globe because the world shifted in an unpredictable way, but researchers of university leadership and administration would suggest that the university sector reacted in very predictable ways (Blackmore, 2020).

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However, to those not focused on this area of research, the reduction in staff to save the institution may have been unexpected, not to mention the implication of who is most susceptible in times of change. Bourdieu (1984) also knew that when it came to changes (predictable or not) in a field, it was not random as to who would benefit, or who would not. Again, we see capital take a leading role in this discussion. Bourdieu argued that those with the most capital essentially had extra, or disposable, capital—and therefore, when it comes to field changes, they were in a better position to adjust to the field change and potentially be the most likely to benefit from it. This can be clear to examine in a university setting because the capital valued is so well defined. If we know that in a faculty position (lecturer, senior lecturer, professor, etc.) and role type (casual, contract, continuing/tenured, etc.) combined with publication volume, grants acquired, and international research profile are the primary capitals that will order the group, how and why people fare differently in times of change becomes clear. Role is perhaps the easiest to understand; casual, contract, and sessional employment is often referred to as precarious employment because it is just that, precarious. It is not stable, and if a field change requires austerity measures, those in precarious employment are likely some of the first to be removed—which was definitely the case during the first years of COVID (Harris et al., 2022; Heffernan, 2022a). During COVID, or other times of change, it does not really matter whether the field shift is towards research, towards grants, or towards profile. The fact is, in most cases, these are the traits the university has for centuries valued most, and people with a lot of capital in one area, tend to have it in another. That is to say, publications lead to profile and grants, or profile leads to grants, or profile leads to be invited to submit publications or be invited on to grants. Therefore, it becomes clearer why those with capital, those established in the field, were more likely to weather the storm of a field change as their abundance of capital is likely to be enough to patch any shortcoming that might appear. For those newer to the field, however, they are much more likely to face consequences of field changes. Establishing a research profile that might get someone invited onto grants, or lead to individual grant success, takes time. For an early career researcher, they may still be establishing their research trajectory so be caught off guard by a field change that favour profile or grant success. For those who entered the field to be streamed into teaching-focused positions the situation is the same. A choice had already been made, out of their control, that saw them directed

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to a capital (teaching) that is important without question, but is usually seen as secondary to research. Thus, if the field changes in a way that enhances the capital aligned with research activities, they will suffer while those streamed into research will benefit. This is why it is also important to consider the field as something that is controlled. Yes, a field can change its priorities as agents come and go, and a hierarchy exists with those at the top having more influence than those at the bottom. However, these descriptions tend to suggest that a field has a fluidness about it, which some might, but rarely is that the case in academia. In academia, the fluidity of the field is controlled by the field of power. In a faculty, the field of power will be the senior members (dean, associate deans, deputy deans, etc.), and committees that have the influence to make decisions (such as research and teaching committees). Even if the dean has final say or the power of veto, these people and committees still have the power to make decisions that influence people’s lives—and so long as their choices are within the realm of acceptability, they are unlikely to be challenged by the dean as these people and committees were put in place to carry out a duty that spared the dean from these decisions. However, holding a senior role or being a member of one of these committees increases someone’s position in the field. For example, the deputy dean of research or members of the research committee may have the ability to shape their faculty’s research agenda, conference funding, or research prizes. These are decisions with tangible outcomes and even if the associated capital is small, they nonetheless place people in a circle of power that gives them a lift in the hierarchy that those not in the circle do not benefit from. The sections above have been strongly focused on what impacts hierarchy within a field, but it is also necessary to note that fields themselves will be subjected to a hierarchy. Some of these fields in a university setting are clear. A field of senior university governance exists, as does fields of faculties and departments within them and in this example each field leads the one that comes after it, thus, senior management influences faculties who influence departments. In a university this might include direct influences, such as determining how much money a faculty has, and indirect influences, such as the university’s vision which it will then be the task of the fields below them to follow. These fields are also about governance; the hierarchy is defined by who can control or influence another. Nonetheless, fields (and particularly in universities) can also be ordered in a hierarchy with little to do about

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power or influence. Faculties and disciplinary areas will be ordered by public opinion and the funding they bring into the institution. In the twenty-first century, this tends to place the sciences at the top, social sciences around the middle, and the humanities and arts towards the lower end. This is partly about public opinion, and partly about the funding these areas receive and grants to which those within those areas have access. Therefore, even though a science faculty does not have influence over the humanities faculty, in the wider field of an institution, the field of the science faculty is likely to be ordered above the field of the humanities faculty. However, this order has not always been the case. In France, in the 1950s, as Bourdieu began his universities studies (Bourdieu, 1977), philosophy was considered to be one of, if not, the pinnacle of university study; reserved for only the most talented and dedicated students. This is partly about the event taking place 70–80 years ago, and somewhat about France’s particularly unique approach to intellect and intellectual debate, but it highlights that fields can compete with one another, and the order can change. In this setting, however, that change is likely to be determined by social attitudes which in the twenty-first century seem strongly dictated by governments who rarely want their citizens looking to outspoken academics for opinions on policies and government decisions. Thus, we have had decades of governments across the globe slowly eroding the public psyche to question the value of higher education and its societal contributions. One needs look no further than the COVID outbreak to see this in action. Universities were often framed as a luxury, a place for out of touch workers and students who were a drain on funds and therefore those funds were cut. Governments thus demonstrated that they maintain control over the public approach to higher education, when in fact, everyone involved in higher education is completely and from what I have ever experienced, almost unanimously dedicated to creating social good and advances to benefit everyone in the community. It is also important to consider that faculties and universities are not always measured on like-for-like criteria, and they will be ranked and ordered whether they want to be or not. Ranking bodies such as Times Higher Education, QS, or Academic Rankings of World Universities (ARWU, or sometimes called Shanghai Rankings) rank universities on a whole, and by subject (amongst other traits but I would suggest institution and subject are the primary measures). These rankings are more than a list on a website, these lists matter and they are a factor in university operations and often what a university or faculty will deem as ‘success’

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(Heffernan & Heffernan, 2018; Pusser & Marginson, 2013). For a faculty or an institution, the significance of ranking is that they can set an institution apart from universities that they are often compared to (such as other regional universities, other newer universities, etc.). Faculties can step themselves apart within an institution by standing out in the subject rankings. For example, if the university is ranked 200th in the world, and the faculty is ranked 100th in subject rankings, then this achievement will provide the faculty with extra capital compared to the other faculties in the university and can lead to a change in the faculty hierarchy (as touched on above). However, faculty achievements are not just about hierarchy and prestige, these achievements can also lead to tangible benefits. If a faculty can set itself apart from the rest of the university, it can lead to extra funding or support which may only further their position in the faculty rankings. At the same time, a faculty excelling beyond the university is likely to attract high-profile academics. This might be high-profile academics in terms of research outputs or media attention (a trait growing in significance in higher education as engagement leads to impact). Regardless of the reason though, the faculty attracting high-profile researchers will only further its position in the disciplinary area, and further add to its capital within the university. The extra complexity of this issue is that institutions and faculties are not compared across institutions and faculties from similar backgrounds, they are compared across regions, countries, and internationally—with no regard for how different the situation one institution or faculty might find itself in compared to another. This of course has clear implications. A globally renowned university in the United States with an endowment measured in the tens of billions of dollars will in university rankings be compared to regional universities in the United Kingdom without large endowments and the research profiles and academics so often associated with these benefits. In a similar way, the ranking bodies do not care if one faculty is located in a country where higher education is supported by governments, and the response to economic downturn is to increase money into higher education as a method of creating more stable future employment. Meanwhile, another faculty is in a country where universities are underfunded, universities are increasingly forced to gain funding through tuition rather than research, and inevitably the ‘brain drain’ is likely to have led to a long-term removal of their greatest researchers. This is where the injustice of rankings comes into play. Rankings do matter, rankings do make a difference (Pusser & Marginson, 2013) but some

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countries and universities are far more likely to do well at this game than others. As Bourdieu would tell us, this is a game, this is a game that increases capital and position in the hierarchy and most universities (particularly in the Westernised world) play this game even if the advantages are only minimal. We know the likelihood of a university currently ranked 200th or 300th in the world entering the top 100 is unlikely because the higher up the table we look, the more significant the improvements need to be to change position. However, there is ample evidence of universities in the mid-tier positions making substantial increases in position as only small improvements in the middle of the field can lead to big gains (such as 500th in the world to 300th) and the effort to make this happen is often deemed worth it if it means a university can increase its position against its local competition in a global format (Heffernan & Heffernan, 2018). In bringing a brief explanation of Bourdieu’s approach to fields to a close, it is apt to reiterate that these ideas can be used in their basic form, or extrapolated to highly detailed assessments which makes Bourdieu’s work so accessible to all types of researchers, and people simply interested in how different groups in society operate. In this book however, we can see that there are clear rules to field. How someone is ordered and why they are ordered in that way is usually quite clear, and so, it is also clear why fields in higher education, whose structures often began to take shape decades or even centuries ago, continue to be tricky places for the marginalised majority to navigate. Even knowing the field, and knowing the rules does not always help, when those rules are so closely bound to middle-­ class habitus, and as we will see in the next section, capital that is so often naturally possessed by the middle class, but that must be fought for by the marginalised staff and students who fill the academy.

Capital The previous two sections have rather consistently discussed capital in its simplest form because like habitus and field, the simplest form of capital is quite basic and it is that Bourdieu’s notions can go from the most straightforward to extreme detail that makes his theories so useful to so many people. Nonetheless, though it may seem unusual that we have come to discuss capital last, and while it is already clear that habitus and capital fit together, there is logic to them being assessed separately, and for us to discuss capital last. As we have discussed, assessing a setting begins with looking at the agent’s habitus but their habitus is set; no matter what field

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they enter, their habitus remains the same. This makes the next task to assess the field, and those within it, to understand what forms of capital are valued most within the field and will most likely lead to a better position in the hierarchy. Essentially, capital is the third piece of the puzzle that sociologists will use to dissect a social setting; in some ways capital can be the most basic, and in others it can be the most complex (a clear trend in Bourdieu’s work). Bourdieu (2005) liked to use economic capital as the simplest way to demonstrate how capital, and even examining the same type of capital, could go from a basic examination to a highly complex issue very quickly. Bourdieu liked economic capital because it was easily quantifiable. If a social setting was primarily motivated by economic capital, then to order the field, one needs only determine how much money each individual has in their bank account and then their economic capital allows them to be ordered in the setting. That is to say, those with the most money in their bank account (economic capital) were at the top of the field, and those with the least were at the bottom. Bourdieu (2005) knew this example demonstrated capital in a basic way, but at the same time he was very cautious of the fact that though this example proved a point, the danger is that it also oversimplified the point if it was the only example an audience was given. Therefore, let us return to the example of the field ordered by economic capital, and the hierarchy ordered by how much money people have in their bank account, and now consider if how that money was attained makes a difference to the capital it holds. If someone has more money than most, but it was an inheritance (that is, money they did not work for) does it count the same as money someone earned from employment? Also, how much money someone has in their bank account is not necessarily reflective of their wealth. If someone has less money in their bank account, but owns a house or a business, will that increase their position in their field? There is no clear answer to any of these issues because the field will decide on what types of economic capital count, and those that do not. As we have discussed, those decisions will be dictated by those at the top of the field, and subsequently the field’s circle of power. If people at the top are at the top only because of the money they hold in their bank account, then that will likely remain the primary measure. Similarly, if several people at the top possess property or gained wealth through inheritance, then those forms of capital will likely count within the field. However, fields do change, and if some people who are at the top because of inheritances are

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removed, and are replaced by people who earned money through employment, then it is likely that the amount of capital given to people who earned money through inheritance will diminish. Albeit basic, the example of economic capital shows how even an apparently basic measure can quickly become not very basic at all. As a starting point to understand the complexity of capital and how it fits with field, it perfectly demonstrates the considerations a researcher must make when assessing a situation. With the basic premise demonstrated through economic capital, the next primary groups of capital to be discussed are cultural and social capital. In real situations, it is rare that a hierarchy will be set according to one specific form of capital (unlike the above example based solely on economic capital). Therefore, Bourdieu (2005) highlights that a hierarchy is likely to be comprised of several capitals, such as cultural and social capital, but the point remains that how much social and cultural capital someone possesses is often directly tied not only to their habitus and cultural trajectory, but also their economic capital. Bourdieu suggests cultural capital is a good place to begin the assessment because cultural capital is so closely related to habitus, cultural trajectory, and education; in fact, Bourdieu says assessing someone’s education, or institutional capital, is an excellent place to begin an assessment of cultural capital. Bourdieu does not specify an assessment of institutional capital, which relates solely to the schools and university someone attended, but he does suggest starting with education and in a book about higher education, institutional capital is relevant. Schools are, for most people, the stepping-stone to university and Bourdieu (1988) knew that some schools and school systems were much more adept at preparing students for university than others, but the schools someone attends alone tells us a lot about their likely trajectory. Unlike universities, there are probably only a handful of schools that receive global recognition. Nonetheless, the point remains that if someone attended Eton or Harrow, or perhaps Choate Rosemary Hall in the United States, certain judgements can be made about the person’s family wealth and social status, and it will be known that it is likely anyone who attended these schools will go on to university and a professional career because that is a primary function of these schools. Nonetheless, though schools with name recognition are a rarity, we can take cue’s from other factors. In school names, words such as ‘College’ or ‘Grammar School’ carry a certain level of capital as in many parts of the world they are associated with private education which carries some

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institutional capital because it separates them from government schools or ‘free’ education. Government-funded schools can also carry institutional capital as some schools are selective, entry is dependent on sporting ability, excellence in the arts, or academic talents. Additionally, the location of a school can carry some cultural capital. It may be more localised in its meaning, but attending a government school in an expensive location provides a certain level of capital because by going to that school, it is suspected that someone lives in or near that expensive area. At the end of the day, these assessments are all about putting the pieces of someone’s existence together and we as sociologists work with all the information we have available. In universities, most of the same rules apply but we have the addition of institutional knowledge being much more expansive and global. Oxford, Cambridge, the Ivy League, MIT, Berkeley, and UCLA (to name a few) are universities that through popular culture most people will be familiar with and so all will likely lead to an immediate connection to academic prowess, and in some cases, also connections to family wealth and networks. Knowing someone goes to, or went to, one of these institutions will immediately give a sociologist studying someone’s cultural capital a large insight into part of their life that is reflective of their (to return to one of Bourdieu’s earlier points) structured and structuring life events to the current day, and the structures that will likely lead their way into the future. However, these institutions may be of global renown, but even attending a university with a national international presence will carry institutional capital, that is to say, people even with no connection to higher education are likely familiar with English universities that are not Oxford or Cambridge, and institutions in the United States that are not in the Ivy League or some of those listed above, but name recognition will carry some capital. More locally, in a world where there are literally thousands of higher education providers, even which university someone attends or attended in a local setting will carry capital. There are countless areas across the globe where a single city will have multiple universities located within it, and though none of them are of global renown outside of academic circles, there will still be a hierarchy within the city, state, or area with different levels of capital attributed to those who attended each institution. This fact will become particularly relevant in future chapters because though it is predictable, students from marginalised backgrounds, and academics from marginalised backgrounds, are much more likely to

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get their start in those institutions with less capital, which in itself has repercussions to academic success and career prospects. The above discussions have nonetheless been about what institutional capital looks like in wider society; it is based around what people can gain from the school or university you went to in terms of location, global prestige, national prestige, or significance in a more localised context. Yet institutional capital in higher education, particularly for those who work in the academy, has a slightly different context because where someone went to university and attained their undergraduate and postgraduate degrees still matters, but is likely to be superseded by where they are now employed. Where someone studied will be a topic of conversation for the entirety of their career, and will be a feature in, for example, resumes, biographies needed for publications and conference proceedings, and some grant applications. An element of this is also at the discretion of the agent (academic) and the more capital that can be acquired from the alma mater the greater chance there is the agent will make this fact part of the discussion. That is to say, there is likely greater reason to inform an audience that someone attended a globally renowned university than there this is that they attended their local, modern institution. However, as much as someone can gain capital from where they attended, they also cannot escape this fact. In most cases this will have a positive outcome. Habitus and cultural trajectory being what it is, the history that leads most people to elite institutions will also lead them towards career success and if that career is academia that will see this goal achieved and immediately have the option to start gaining capital from their alma mater. Take for example the notion of two new early career academics starting in the same faculty, at the same level, at the start of a new academic year. We know they will immediately be ordered within the field of a faculty, and that order will in part be determined by the available information and a major factor in that information may be what university they attended. Predictably, if one attended a prestigious institution and the other a local institution, the new hire who attended the prestigious university is likely to be ranked higher. Nonetheless, there is the case that this can sometimes work against someone if their career does not quite go to plan and their career does not match that expected of someone who attended a globally renowned university. The graduate of a prestigious, research-­ focused university who finds themselves working at a small, teaching-­ focused regional university may find their history work against them because in some ways it suggests something went wrong. The career

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trajectory of someone with a prestigious alma mater is not to work in a small, teaching-focused university so because this breaks away from the expected cultural trajectory, it could work against them. Social capital is the third type of capital and while it is, put simply, the capital someone can accrue from those around them, social capital holds a special place in higher education and subsequent success. Social capital can be capital gained from family, friends, colleagues, and while what amount of advantage may change depending on the relationship and what they will do for you, as we will see, in higher education even being within the general proximity of some people will provide advantages. For students, and this is particularly relevant in a book about the success and obstacles marginalised people in higher education face, social capital is about getting ahead not because of your own work or achievements, but because of the capital you can gain from those around you. It might be economic capital from family, or in this case, the social capital of family members or friends to aid in the admissions process, or staying enrolled if issues with grades or attendance occur during someone’s studies. For what social capital can do for students we need look no further than legacy admissions in the US system—admissions for students whose parents, grandparents, great grandparents attended the university. For students applying to Harvard, the acceptance rate is 5% (so approximately 1 in 20 applicants will be successful). For legacy applicants however, the acceptance rate is 33%, or 1 in 3 (Gross, 2019). Thus, that the acceptance rate for legacy admission students is almost seven times greater than the wider admissions pool is a solid example of the power that social capital can hold for university students. Of course, Harvard may be the example, but this is an endemic problem in many elite universities and while the research points to it being a greater problem in the United States than many other countries, research certainly points to it occurring in other locations. In some ways, the prevalence of the legacy admissions in the United States allows it to be a system people know about and are able to critique because it is common knowledge that it occurs. One could argue that similar situations occurring behind closed doors in other locations makes it much more difficult to gauge in terms of how often it happens and what the practice is costing merit-based applicants. It is also worth reiterating here, and is relevant to the next paragraphs, that Bourdieu (1977) was a firm believer that merit did not exist in education and that merit was often a method to disguise the capitals that led to success. To say someone graduated from an Ivy League school and began

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a successful career has the clear suggestion that they studied hard, and it was their academic excellence that led to them being accepted into an Ivy League school and later establishing a career. This situation is far less impressive if details such as legacy admissions and establishing a career backed by family networks or finance are discussed even though Bourdieu is quick to point out how often this is precisely the case. The concept of the rags-to-riches story, of the person who began with nothing but worked hard and achieved their goals, are often in the media and are used to give people hope. That is nonetheless an unrealistic portrayal of what is taking place, those stories feature in news articles because they are rare, because they are the 1 in 100 who broke with the cultural trajectory of their circumstance. Bourdieu knew this because Bourdieu knew he was the 1  in 100 from his community to break free. Yet, the notion of working hard and achieving academic and career goals continues. In a previous work (Heffernan, 2022a), I compared this concept to laundering privilege (think money laundering). A person born into privilege, with economic capital, social capital, and cultural capital can attend elite schools, universities, and establish a successful career, and these achievements can clearly have taken place because their cultural trajectory has ensured every obstacle is removed and potential barrier opened. However, the idea of merit allows for all these privileges and advantages to be laundered into merit because for generations the idea has developed that academic success is tied to only effort, and the idea that the hardest workers achieve most. Unfortunately, we are talking about higher education, and in higher education privilege and capital can from the onset provide advantages that echo through someone’s studies and career. Social capital, and the impact of social capital, is often much clearer where academia as a career is concerned. Patronship is a basic example of the power social capital can hold. If two early career researchers of generally the same levels of achievement are in a field, but one of those researchers is known to be mentored by a senior leader in the field, then that early career researcher will gain social capital from this mentorship. There may be social capital connected to this relationship, and depending on the significance of the mentor, the social capital will increase the early career researcher’s position in the field significantly, but it is not just about social capital, it is because of the wider acceptance that social capital is convertible to other types of capital. In the previous section we saw how social capital resulted in legacy admissions and a significantly greater likelihood of being admitted into a

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prestigious college. The acceptance with a legacy admission is rarely only about the social capital of a parent attending a university, it is that the social capital of attending that university also means economic and cultural capital is supporting the application even if social capital is the primary driver. The same is true of the early career researcher; the social capital from a renowned mentor in part stems from extra capital that the researcher will gain. In academia a mentor opens pathways to publications (via invited articles and chapters), that have a high chance of being read and cited (due to the mentor’s prominence). The same is true of conference presentations, and media opportunities, and a strong likelihood that the early career research will soon enough be brought onto large and prestigious grants. What we see here is social capital transferring into other forms of capital, in this instance, into the capital that helps establish a career and enhance career progression. Publications, research profile, and grants are the staple capitals of what leads to a successful academic career and these are being aided by the mentor. However, this capital can then be converted into career success (and subsequently economic capital) as these are the capitals that can lead to continuing employment, research-focused roles, and promotion. What I hope is clear in this section is while the mentor/mentee relationship begins with elements of social capital, in part that social capital is accrued because every other agent in the field knows that social capital will be converted into capital valued in the field (publication, grants, promotion, etc.) soon enough. This situation may seem very unfair, unjust, and another example of how merit does not exist in higher education, and while that is true, we do need to be cautious about oversimplifying this situation. A lot of what we know about career networks and network success stems from the business world, and though much of that applies to academia, there are subtle differences. Perhaps the biggest difference is that business research talks about the undeserving employee, with lower qualifications or skills, still getting ahead because of social capital (Hadani et al., 2012). This idea is less prominent in academia. While I have no doubt that people have succeeded via non-merit-based processes, in academia we tend to see people who already possess capital, who already have skills, publications, and grants, gain even more advantage from their social capital and academic work. Bourdieu knew this concept existed, and he knew it was not limited to higher education. This is another example of reproduction because it was not about seeing unskilled people succeed, it was about seeing mentors

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and the leaders of a network seeing their success reproduced by the next generation of members in the network. The idea that reproduction is not about unskilled or unqualified people getting ahead extends to Bourdieu’s (2000) idea that reproduction does not begin with people at the top of the field looking down to the lower end of the field for potential protégés. He instead suggests that reproduction begins with people who are lower in the field, such as early career researchers or academics who have recently received their doctorate (to return the discussion to higher education), setting themselves apart via their performance and gaining the attention of the senior scholars. This notion has immediate consequences for academics from marginalised backgrounds. As we have touched on already, and is a feature of later chapters exploring different aspects of marginalisation in academia, a constant feature of entering higher education as someone from a marginalised background is having to face hurdles and closed gates that are not placed in front of white, straight, able-bodied, middle-class people who speak the right language. A clear consequence of the obstacles academics from marginalised backgrounds face is that even if the hurdles are overcome and the gates are open, these things take time. The instant connections between student and tutor in the classroom are made between students and tutors who share the most in common; the middle-class nature of higher education means this benefits the white middle classes at a significant rate. Therefore, the early career advantages, like research assistant work or teaching assistant opportunities, more often than not, goes to the people who can make immediate connections with their superiors. The same is true of getting someone’s publication record started. Those who have the most in common with their supervisor and the senior scholars of their faculty are the most likely to get the assistance to get those first publications produced. The marginalised academic may achieve these same goals (though they will likely have to fight the system every step of the way) but completing these steps will take longer. And as Bourdieu (2000) noted that that an aspect of reproduction is agents entering the field, or at the lower end of the field, setting themselves apart to be noticed, this is far less likely to happen for a marginalised academic as they will not have received the career advantages that come with white and middle-classness in a field that is designed by and designed for the advantage of the white middle classes. Bourdieu (2000) also points out that none of this is hidden or a secret. Early career research agents and agents completing their PhD know they

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are being ranked and know there is a career advantage to standing out as early as possible, and this has to happen via every means necessary. In academia, people need that initial start, which can come from relationships with those higher in the field, but once that start has been made it is much more likely that this group of people will push harder in terms of their outputs, gamble more on their future in terms of prestigious journals, grants, and job applications, and position themselves in areas that match their potential rather than matches their current position. As was touched on earlier (Bourdieu, 2000), this is not about the unqualified person getting ahead, it is about the very capable person, taking advantage of their white middle-classness, and combining the two to excel through the field. Bourdieu (2000) suggested this method works and more recent studies (Atkinson, 2012; Heffernan, 2020; Mills, 2008) have all found that people are aware of their capital and know how to leverage it to create more. As Bourdieu suggested in his explanations of reproduction, their actions are noticed by senior academics, and soon enough they are lifted by reproduction taking place and being able to further leverage their capital by building on the senior academic’s higher position in the field. Thus, though reproduction is not about unskilled people gaining an advantage, it is about holders of capital using that capital to gain more and when early capital can be gained via network connections, the system remains unjust (Webb et al., 2002). To briefly touch on the world outside of academia, in wider society there are some noted downsides to reproduction and social capital hiring and promotion—primarily that in some industries it can lead to ‘better’ candidates being overlooked. Merit-based hires are just that, and the suggestion is that merit-based hires will result in better work, they will be more successful, and will be a better asset to the organisation. Theoretically, in academia, this same approach would see the merit-based hire have a greater amount of publication and grant success, produce a stronger research profile, and provide more capital to their faculty and university (Hadani et al., 2012). This may be true, but again, network hiring is not about seeing unskilled applicants succeed, it is about senior members bringing in younger members to enhance their capital in the case of reproduction and individual academics, or the group’s capital in relation to the network hiring or promotion. Bourdieu (2000) knew this, and it is why he had very different ideas about how using social capital to gain employment or promotion in academia worked compared to the business world. To begin with, he argued

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that the idea of the non-merit-based hire not performing as well as the merit-based hire was not a highly relevant aspect in higher education for at least three reasons. Firstly, the notion of reproduction, or professional networks in academia, tend to begin with the selected individual having a higher level of capital than most others at their career stage and in their area. This level of capital is what makes them stand out, it is what makes them the likely candidate to be selected for an academic network or by a senior scholar. What is pivotal to note here is that while this means the candidate is going to get extra capital through non-merit-based privilege, some level of skill/qualification/profile must be present in the beginning to draw the attention of the network or scholar (Bourdieu, 2000). Secondly, in either instance, the primary reason for the network to introduce a new member, or for the senior scholar to select their protégé before the process of reproduction begins is, in the former, is to bolster the capital of the network. In the latter, it is to see the senior scholar’s capital, profile, and legacy continue. Therefore, people with capital are being selected because of the belief that they will aid in creating more capital (Bourdieu, 1989, 2000), not that they will become a liability. The final reason that Bourdieu argued reproduction and network hiring in academia were not about uplifting the unworthy and (unlike in the business world) would not lead to selections that failed is that, in the worst-case scenario, this would not be allowed to happen. Whether it be for the purpose of reproduction or for selection into a group, the network or the senior scholar benefit, the selected candidate has been selected because it is believed they will add capital. Thus, as unlikely as it is that the selected candidate does not match expectations, they will not be allowed to fail— the network or the senior scholar have too much invested to allow that to happen (Bourdieu, 2005). A point worth noting in academia, particularly in recent years, is how the changing shape of academia has also led to the capital that matters most being viewed from new angles. In higher education, publications, and grants have for decades, even centuries, been a significant gauge of someone’s capital. In the modern, corporate university, however, these capitals have taken large steps forward to becoming completely quantifiable as publications are assessed via journal prestige, downloads, and citations, and grants not just by value, but by the difficulty of attaining them. While it is worth noting that none of these metrics are about the quality of research and are much more about their research value and audience, the consequence is nonetheless that outsiders looking in, faculties, and

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individual academics can very easily, and with great accuracy, gauge their position amongst other academics. Bourdieu (2000) noted the significance of an academic (or any agent) being able to accurately identify their position in the field, but in modern academia this can be done to a level Bourdieu had potentially not envisaged. The result is that Bourdieu argued that people were aware of their capital, and the more capital they had, the more they would push for success and gamble on their future. I would argue, this is entirely the case in the modern university because when the sector has created an environment where academics are ranked on spreadsheets (and this is not endorsement but an acceptance of fact), the amount someone can gamble on their success is right in front of them, their dean, their university, and deans of other faculties and other universities. The counterpoint to this is that those without capital also know they are without capital and Bourdieu (2000) suggests they will adjust their expectations accordingly. This means they will not gamble on themselves or fight for success, because the spreadsheets that determine success in academia have already relegated them to second place. Bourdieu says this is about people being realistic; people understand where they sit so adjust their expectations because they know their avenues of achievement are limited. The issue, however, is that Bourdieu was right, and we now live in a metrics-driven world where success is largely defined by the spreadsheet. Yet, this is a book about marginalisation, and over and over again, it has already become clear that an implication of marginalisation in the white and middle-class sanctuary of higher education is time. The privileged get the first opportunities to succeed, they are the ones first selected by their tutors for teaching roles and research assistant work, they are the ones first chosen by their supervisors to assist in research projects and on grants. The marginalised academic may be every bit as capable as their privileged counterparts, but they first have to fight their way through the prejudices of marginalisation and not possessing the right capital before they break into the privileged circles of the classroom or their supervisor’s selection. However, by this time, they have not caught up, the privileged students are already several steps further ahead. What does this look like on the spreadsheets that determine success? Already, even at this early career stage, the privileged students are on top and the marginalised students are lower down. As Bourdieu said, this is why the privileged will gamble on their potential success because their capital ensures it will likely happen. It is the privileged students at the top, leaving marginalised students (and

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later academics) lower down, and more likely of completing different types of academic work such as teaching and administration. People like to be positive and talk about changing someone’s position and looking at ways to increase their status in the field, and this is not to suggest that is not possible, it is about highlighting the myriad obstacles placed in front of marginalised students, or as we are about to discuss, academics. Bourdieu (1988) was always aware that increasing status in academia is a difficult, and for many, impossible task—and the field has changed significantly since his death. The financial pressures universities are under, or potentially place themselves under in the never-ending hunt for profits, means new staff hires are not given the opportunity to find their feet in a position and instead are often streamed into roles from the onset of their career (Heffernan, 2020, 2022a). This significantly heightens the importance of what happens to people during their doctoral years and, again, points to success of the privileged at the cost of marginalised communities. Thus, if upon receiving a contract role or a continuing position, whether someone is streamed into a mostly research role, or a mostly teaching role, is determined by their previous achievements. As has been made clear, it is the privileged doctoral students who make the fastest and earliest connections, get the early opportunities, have the early successes, and will be streamlined into research roles. It will most likely be the doctoral students from marginalised backgrounds, who did not get to benefit from instant connections, network success, and reproduction from being mentored by a senior figure, who will be streamlined into teaching and administration roles. The consequences of this situation are two-fold. The first is that this puts marginalised students hoping to become academics in difficult positions as they will likely be the ones taking on the teaching and administration roles, and once someone is in an administration and teaching role, the only way out of that position is through research. However, once you have been streamlined into a teaching and research role, we need to consider the realistic changes of someone being able to ‘research their way out’ of that situation and into a research role. Frankly, the likelihood of that happening is minimal. Being placed into a teaching and administration role means that will be their primary task and they will only be given minimal time for research in their workload. Therefore, the only way out of the situation is to complete research in their own time. This scenario then relies on the privilege of time (to be able to complete that work outside of someone’s paid role) and circumstance (do they have a homelife that would enable them to work a full-time job, and then come home and

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dedicate enough time to unpaid research to move from the teaching and administration role, into a position more heavily centred on research?). This will be about the individual’s circumstances, but on the surface, this system relies on privilege (such as time and opportunities) that exist in the middle classes, and a rarer in marginalised communities. The university also benefits from the circumstance and academics attempting to be moved from positions more about research and administration to research roles. They do not have to pay people for producing the research that will get them into a research stream. The academic trying to change their role is working on their own time, for free, in addition to the paid role, and yet the university benefits from the research outputs and there is no guarantee the university will change someone’s role. The second issue to note is how well this system can hide prejudice within itself. Universities love to have webpages with photographs of diverse student and staff populations, and statistically, university staff diversity has grown significantly in the last two decades (Scobey, 2016). This has occurred through universities knowing they had to change, having a more open approach to diverse hiring, and having support systems and hiring practices, and focusing on recruiting people from diverse backgrounds who even in the late twentieth century may not have been able to consider a role in higher education. These steps are excellent, and they have opened a huge set of opportunities for people from marginalised communities. Nevertheless, inclusion in terms of staff numbers does not mean equity in the roles they fill. When privilege sets up the foundation of an academic career, faculties can employ large numbers of academics from diverse backgrounds, but the employment is prejudice. It will be the privileged employees who mostly fill the research-focused roles, and the marginalised employees who fill the administration and teaching positions. Similarly, the wider treatment of women in higher education also demonstrates this in practice. In the twenty-first century, women dominate higher education in terms of numerical number, yet leadership roles and the professoriate remain dominated by men. Thus, it is important to differentiate between inclusion and equity. In academia, there are other ways someone trapped in their position in a field can find success and see themselves climb up the hierarchy. This can rely on the fields shifting, overlapping, and being able to leverage the capital from one field for advantage in another. In academia, perhaps the easiest way to think about this is to consider ways someone can shift their capital by working in other fields that will carry some capital in their

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faculty hierarchy. Media engagements, working with government policymakers, and working with industry are all examples of tasks in academia that may attract capital within their faculty hierarchy. An academic’s research profile can be increased through media engagements which can lead to more invitations for keynote addresses, to turn the research into workshops, consultancy work, citations of their work, and overall, a wider awareness of their research. Working with policymakers and industry can have similar impacts as they allow research to be turned into policy, and research turned into data that will have an impact on policy and on the industry the academic works within. Any opportunity to work with these groups also increases the likelihood of future funding opportunities to conduct more work, and essentially see the cycles of research and impact begin once more. How much capital these activities will gain an academic, and therefore how much influence it will have on changing their place within their faculty’s hierarchy depends on the disciplinary area, and faculty itself. In some areas, activities like this might be on the periphery, in other areas, these activities might carry significant capital. In the twenty-first century, it could be argued that universities are more concerned with research profile and marketing than ever before. Funding is down, grants are decreasing in number, decreasing in value, and subsequently are becoming less likely to be gained day by day. This makes partnerships with policymakers and industry more important as avenues of research funding, and a pathway to seeing research turned into practice, and a media profile is a solid way to bring someone’s work to the attention to a very large audience. As much as Bourdieu knew that capital in other areas could be used to gain an advantage in an agent’s primary field (in this example their faculty), he also knew this came with potential dangers. Primarily, Bourdieu’s (2000) point was that though this work could aid in someone’s capital, the primary capital of the faculty would remain publications, grants, and awards. Therefore, unless this outside work could readily be transferred into capital relating to publications and grants, their work’s value was somewhat limited. A significant media presence is a valuable tool and can shed light on someone’s work, their faculty, and their university, but if they have very few publications and no research grants, the value of this media presence, and indeed the worth of the effort to conduct this work, will fall into question. Therefore, using other fields to gain capital in the primary field is about complementing work, effort, and success in that primary field, it is not a way to subvert the achievements tied to the primary capitals within an area (Bourdieu, 2000).

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Habitus, Field, and Capital in Higher Education The final section of this chapter is a culmination of the previous examinations of what habitus, field, and capital can look like in higher education and is a frank investigation of education as capital. The examples within this chapter have largely been about how capital works in society and how capital can aid in the success of students and people hoping to have successful academic careers. However, the fact that education is a form of capital in itself is a worthy final note, particularly in a work dedicated to what marginalisation looks like in higher education. Education is a powerful tool, possessing it not only changes someone’s outlook, it changes how they are perceived. Bourdieu knew this difference was crucial and it was why the middle classes have for so long protected and defended education and, likely without intent (but sometimes very much with intent), made it impossible or extremely difficult for those outside of privileged circles to gain access to education and the value it holds. Bourdieu knew that education as capital largely relied on formal school in the modern Westernised world. He was aware that education in terms of passing a set of skills from one person to another had existed for thousands of years, and that capital could be gained from education as we have previously discussed in terms of the habitus, cultural trajectory, and capital someone can gain from going to different types of schools and universities in terms of their location, size, and prestige. However, his ideas about education as capital are largely dedicated to these types of formal schooling because formal schooling itself is used as a societal barrier and gatekeeping tactic to maintain a pre-determined social order. This idea is related to Bourdieu’s earlier argument, and one that is foundational to this book, in that education is not a meritocracy—meritocracy in education is a myth (Bourdieu, 1977). We have explored this notion several times already, but it is one worth exploring in depth due to the prevalence it holds (and has held) in the public psyche for centuries, and subsequently, the damage it causes by prompting people to not ask questions about the current system which allows it to continue unabated. Education is not about merit, success in education is about social capital, and social capital is about success in education. This may seem a confusing premise, but we need look no further than the studies of children entering formal education and their success (or chance of success) to see the barriers at play for some, and the pathway to success be cleared and highlighted for others. As we have covered, for a

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child walking into a school with parents who attended school through to university, these children have a higher likelihood of parents dedicated to learning, and have the ability, finances, and time to support their child through their educational journey, the chance of success is much greater than for a child growing up in poverty, whose parents may be every bit as determined to see their child succeed as the former example, but do not have the academic ability, the finances, or the time to support their child. As Pat Thomson wrote, some children are ‘positioned to be successful at the game of education right from the moment they walked through the nursery gates’ (Thomson, 2017, pp. 18–19). This scenario perhaps predictably increases in high school and university. The advantages that come from increased emotional and academic support at home, and financial support for tutoring and resources, all play a role in making the pathway to success easier for those with social capital, and more obstructed for those without. We spoke earlier about education allowing people with social capital to launder privilege, wealth, networks (items that can lead to condemnation in wider society) into success through intelligence and hard work at school and university (products that tend to gain respect). Bourdieu referred to this aspect of education as being a ‘gift exchange’ where the social inequalities (the privileges) that lead to career success can be exchanged for the perception of traits such as working hard in school leading to good grades, admittance into a good university, and finally a financially stable (or lucrative) career (Bourdieu, 1977, p. 95). Laundering privilege or taking it to the gift exchange might seem like a lot of work, but these processes were created, and people go to the effort to ensure they continue to happen, because the effort required excuses a lot of people, from the middle classes to the uber-wealthy from having privilege be the reason for their success. As some famous examples make clear, this is why we hear about Jeff Bezos starting Amazon in his garage, and not the sizeable loan he received from his parents, and it is why we read about Elon Musk’s wealth coming from his tech start-ups and not less popular stories of his family’s business dealings in Africa. More practically though, this is what lets people with successful careers in medicine, law, or technology (or really anyone at the pinnacle of any field) have a nice house, a nice car, and expensive furnishings, and go on expensive holidays. Laundering and the gift exchange means the rest of the struggling world will not look at that person and see the unfair advantages that often came at the cost of their own chances to succeed

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financially, and instead see someone whose success came from academic ability and studying hard. The point here is that as Bourdieu (1990a) knew the ability to refine the advantages someone receives in life due to generational wealth, privilege, or middle-classness into a product that appears to be from the fruits of a merit-based system is pivotal in maintaining the social status quo. We know from our examination of field that people will work with the capital they have to climb the hierarchy, and also, those with the most capital have the greatest ability to climb the ladder, and the largest likelihood of being able to successfully weather the field changing what it values, or moving to a new field and maintaining a similarly high position. Holding this capital, and being able to use it this way, is not just about maintaining the status quo, and the notion that those at the top of their field deserve to be there, as a philosophical notion; it also has practical applications that we see every day. The public service, that is jobs in government, is perhaps the clearest example of this and one that can be seen in most countries around the world. Who fills the leadership roles, the highest paid senior positions? The story put forward will be those who worked hardest, who deserved to be there, who produced the work to reach the senior roles and the senior salaries. Though of course, the reality is that those with the most capital going into the system, also had the clearest run to the top. The idea of ‘making capital’ is thus a practical one, employees at a large company are far more likely to take directions from leaders who ‘worked their way to the top’ rather than leaders who were born into rich and well-connected families and near as makes no difference, guaranteed pathways to management. As this section on capital comes to an end, what is important to keep in mind as we move forward is that education can be gained, and someone can be admitted into a prestigious school or university, not by merit, but by the economic, social, and cultural capital they possess. In education, people with the most capital going in, tend to exit with success and even more capital because their capital is now cloaked in the appearance of merit. People make these efforts (knowingly or not) to mask their privilege in education because education is capital. Education is a qualification, but it also aids in social capital through networks, cultural capital by enabling someone to fit in with those at the top of the hierarchy, and economic capital because education, social, and cultural capital combined tend to lead to higher-paying jobs, and the ability to have secure jobs, nicer things, and access to more luxury items.

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Summary This chapter has been a small, but hopefully detailed and informative, look at Bourdieu’s primary contribution to our coming discussions about the higher education system and how different types of marginalised groups have worked within the sector. On one hand, it is important to note that the topics this chapter has covered have been the basis of significant works by Bourdieu, and probably thousands of articles and books by researchers using his work—so if these topics have piqued an interest, the option for anyone who wishes to explore these topics further is available. In this chapter, however, our focus has been on habitus, capital, and field as they relate to higher education. As we will see in the next chapters, higher education was never created as a system for equity, it was created for the privileged, and 1000 years later, that often remains the case. Bourdieu provided a basic set of thinking tools, a way to think about society, fields, and what goes on inside them to demonstrate that success is often pre-determined. It is not about who works hardest, or who is the best, in education, it is often about who faces the least number of obstacles and closed gates. Education also suffers from the snowball effect, the small snowball at the top of the hill gaining momentum and size as it descends. Pat Thomson (2017) told us that success in education is often dictated before a student even walks through the school gate for the first time because we already know who will and will not face obstacles in their education. Now picture what happens by the time those small snowballs that entered primary or elementary school gates reach university. Higher education has changed to ensure more and more people are admitted, but success remains easier, more profitable, and more likely for those who entered with the speed and size of a snowball that has faced no obstacles— and Bourdieu teaches us why it is incredibly hard to change that order.

References Albright, J., Hartman, D., & Widin, J. (2017). Bourdieu’s field theory and the social sciences. Springer Singapore. Atkinson, W. (2012). Reproduction revisited: Comprehending complex educational trajectories. The Sociological Review, 60(4), 735–753. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1467-­954x.2012.02131.x Blackmore, J. (2020). The carelessness of entrepreneurial universities in a world risk society: a feminist reflection on the impact of Covid-19 in Australia. Higher

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Education Research & Development, 39(7), 1332–1336. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/07294360.2020.1825348 Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice (R. Nice, Trans.). Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgment of taste (R. Nice, Trans.). Harvard University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1988). Homo Academicus (P. Collier, Trans.). Polity. Bourdieu, P. (1989). Social space and symbolic power. Sociological Theory, 7(1), 14–25. https://doi.org/10.2307/202060 Bourdieu, P. (1990a). In other words: Essays towards a reflexive sociology. Stanford University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1990b). The logic of practice (R.  Nice, Trans.). Stanford University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1993). Sociology in question (R. Nice, Trans.). Sage. Bourdieu, P. (1994). In other words: Essays towards a reflexive sociology (M. Adamson, Trans.). Polity. Bourdieu, P. (2000). Pascalian meditations. Stanford University Press. Bourdieu, P. (2005). The social structures of the economy (C. Turner, Trans.). Polity. Doidge, S., & Doyle, J. (2020). Australian universities in the age of Covid. Educational Philosophy and Theory. https://doi.org/10.1080/0013185 7.2020.1804343 Grenfell, M. (2014). Pierre Bourdieu: Key concepts. Routledge. Grenfell, M., & James, D. (1998). Bourdieu and education: Acts of practical theory. Routledge. Gross, D. (2019). How elite US schools give preference to wealthy and white ‘legacy’ applicants. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-­ news/2019/jan/23/elite-­schools-­ivy-­league-­legacy-­admissions-­harvard-­wealthier­whiter Hadani, M., Coombes, S., Das, D., & Jalajasi, D. (2012). Finding a good job: Academic network centrality and early occupational outcomes in management academia. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 33, 723–739. https://doi. org/10.1002/job.788 Harris, J., Smithers, K., Spina, N., & Heffernan, T. (2022). Disrupting dominant discourses of the other: Examining experiences of contract researchers in the academy. Studies in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/0307507 9.2022.2105831 Heffernan, T. (2020). Examining university leadership and the increase in workplace hostility through a Bourdieusian lens. Higher Education Quarterly, 75(2), 199–211. https://doi.org/10.1111/hequ.12272 Heffernan, T. (2022a). Bourdieu and higher education: Life in the modern university. Springer. Heffernan, T. (2022b). Forty years of social justice research in Australasia: Examining equity in inequitable settings. Higher Education Research and

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Development, 41(1), 48–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2021. 2011152 Heffernan, T., & Bosetti, L. (2020a). University bullying and incivility towards faculty deans. International Journal of Educational Leadership. https://doi. org/10.1080/13603124.2020.1850870 Heffernan, T., & Bosetti, L. (2020b). The emotional labour and toll of managerial academia on higher education leaders. Journal of Educational Administration and History. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220620.2020.1725741 Heffernan, T., & Bosetti, L. (2021). Incivility: The new type of bulling in higher education. Cambridge Journal of Education. https://doi.org/10.108 0/0305764X.2021.1897524 Heffernan, T., & Heffernan, A. (2018). Language games: University responses to ranking metrics. Higher Education Quarterly, 72(1), 29–39. https://doi. org/10.1111/hequ.12139 Laurison, D., & Friedman, S. (2016). The class pay gap in higher professional and managerial occupations. American Sociological Review, 81(4), 668–695. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122416653602 Manstead, A. (2018). The psychology of social class: How socioeconomic status impacts thought, feelings, and behaviour. British Journal of Social Psychology, 57(2), 267–291. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12251 Mills, C. (2008). Reproduction and transformation of inequalities in schooling: The transformative potential of the theoretical constructs of Bourdieu. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 29(1), 79–89. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 01425690701737481 Pusser, B., & Marginson, S. (2013). University rankings in critical perspective. Journal of Higher Education, 84, 544–568. https://doi.org/10.1353/ jhe.2013.0022 Schirato, T., & Roberts, M. (2018). Bourdieu: A critical introduction. Allen & Unwin. Scobey, D. (2016). Marginalized Majority: Non-traditional Students and the Equity Imperative. Diversity and Democracy, 19(1). https://www.aacu.org/ diversitydemocracy/2016/winter/scobey Thomson, P. (2017). Educational Leadership and Pierre Bourdieu. Routledge. Webb, J., Schirato, T., & Danaher, G. (2002). Understanding Bourdieu. Sage.

CHAPTER 4

The History of the University

Marginalisation in higher education, both in regard to students and in regard to academics, is a relatively modern concept. If we consider that the history of universities stretches back almost 1000 years, it has only been in the last 50 or 60  years that options begin to take shape for those not within the privileged few. When considering these situations, it is also important to note the difference between something occurring for the first time, and something occurring on a regular basis. For example, it is not unusual that older institutions will note when they began admitting women in the ‘History’ sections of their websites. However, admitting your first woman, or admitting women in a scenario where they represent a fraction of one percent of your total enrolments, is not an example of gender equity; 150 years after many Western universities began to admit women, most are still far from any form of gender parity when it comes to graduate outcomes for students, and leadership roles or the professoriate for academics. As much as marginalisation in higher education is a modern concept, and is one of which we do not really even begin to see the seeds being sown until the 1960s, a brief look at the history of the university sector is necessary. This examination is useful to us because it establishes how the system developed to be one of privilege. Those foundations remain firmly in place today and even though the systems have changed to include marginalised communities, and in fact, most institutions could not operate © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 T. Heffernan, The Marginalised Majority in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41432-9_4

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without their students and staff from marginalised backgrounds, the sector itself has not changed (Scobey, 2016). What is evident, and as we have spoken about before in this book, the sector changed to allow marginalised students and staff to enter, but it did this by making temporary changes to the entry path—the sector never altered to see equity in the governance, leadership, membership in the professoriate, or success for students and graduates be part of its systemic change. Due to these factors, marginalised students and staff in higher education remain outsiders, even if they compose a majority of those within the sector. It is because the higher education sector has become so good at inclusion in terms of number that many people then fail to ask questions about equity relating to opportunity. People have for so long connected ‘marginalisation’ to ‘minority’, which is a fair assessment because in so many cases that is exactly what is taking place. However, Bourdieu, Freire, and many others would tell us the exact opposite is true when we are examining power structures. Marginalisation does not mean minority, it means anyone who is not in the circle of power. The previous chapter’s examination of higher education makes clear why privilege is so integral to success in higher education. As extreme as it sounds, Bourdieu knew success in a privileged space like the university was largely determined at birth, and for those from unprivileged backgrounds, you had to be one of the lucky few to succeed if that was not your cultural trajectory; and Bourdieu was abundantly aware that he was one of the lucky few (Grenfell, 2014). This chapter, and those following it which each discuss different aspects of marginalisation in higher education, how they manifested, and how those impacted by marginalisation are coping in the twenty-first century, each look at the issues of marginalisation in higher education from at least two perspectives. The first relates to the inclusion of people from marginalised groups, and what steps have been taken to see more people from each of the primary marginalised backgrounds be included in the classroom and in the workplace. The second perspective, however, is about what has not been done to enhance equity, it is about what has occurred to see inclusion increase, but not equity in outcomes of studying for students, or careers for academics. This may at times be an uncomfortable discussion, but it is one that must take place if higher education wishes to fulfil its claims of becoming an equitable space.

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In the Beginning We will not spend a lot of time discussing the ancient origins of the university because while a detailed historical assessment is not going to contribute a great deal to this discussion, it is still worth noting the always privileged trajectory of thinking as a career. Bloom (2012) highlighted that even Socrates and Plato, almost five centuries before the common era began, knew that a life dedicated to thinking was rarely one that fit alongside the duties most people in Greece had to complete each day to earn a living. Thus, before we even consider universities as an institution, it is relevant to consider that 2500 years ago people already knew that occupations dedicated to the mind were separate to most of society, and would be unrelatable to them. This path through life for most would also not be a lucrative one, which immediately raises the question of ‘what type of people would have this life available to them?’ The answer remains somewhat the same in the twenty-first century as it was in the 500 B.C.E., a very privileged few whose opportunity to study was likely enabled by the capital that they carried from their family, and not capital they accrued without assistance in their own life. It was not until around 1000 years into the common era that universities as we might recognise them today began to take shape as far as being a place of dedicated learning. Even then, however, as Oxford and Cambridge followed the trend of what was taking place in some of Europe’s biggest cities, the focus remained on religion. The university was a place primarily for training clergy. Nonetheless, it must be considered what role the clergy played 1000  years ago, and for the first five or six centuries of university history. Yes, universities were training people for the Church, but the role of the Church was immense during this period. This meant that universities were training people for the pulpit in England or alter in Europe, but they were also training people who would have roles in government, medicine, and law. At this time, and in geographic areas where universities existed or were forming, there were few royal, government, or civic decisions being made without input from religious representatives (Mayrl & Uecker, 2011). Therefore, while universities were training clergy during this period, these people had a far greater role in all aspects of life than they had today, and they inevitably spread across the globe as Westernisation and Imperialism spread. What it meant to be a member of the clergy at this point should thus also be an indication of who had the option of taking up study and later

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taking on these roles. Labourers did not have the option of receiving a ‘call from God’ only to attend university and enter the Church. When entering the Church so often also meant entering the aristocracy, or at least travelling in aristocratic circles, it should not be a surprise that university even at this stage was already designed by, and with the benefits of, the male children of the privileged in mind. The next stage in university transformation, and their retention of privilege, occurred at different times in places around the globe largely due to timeframes of Western colonisation, but in each case the scenario was the same. The step away from a religious foundation in universities was as they became places at first encouraged, but then required, to enable someone to work in certain professions. Medicine and law are perhaps the clearest examples of this process in practice. Someone could be a doctor or lawyer through training and experience that did not necessarily involve a university degree. However, a turn eventually happened that most people expected their doctor or lawyer to be university trained: remembering that someone who even had the option of using these services several centuries ago was, by the fact that they had these services available to them, privileged. Eventually though, policies were put in place which restricted the career to those who trained and obtained university degrees. Thus, the only way to gain entry into some careers was by university study (Forsyth, 2014). Medicine and law may be clear examples of disciplinary areas needing qualifications acquired through university study, but this notion quickly spread to all areas of science, maths, humanities, and many areas of education and led to the lay people entering historically religious (and they often remained religious) places for the benefit of enhancing their life prospects. Once again, it cannot be denied who these people were. To have the option of university meant wealth: it meant carrying on in a career that was expected of anyone from that family; it was about habitus and capital ensuring someone’s cultural trajectory to privilege. It is also necessary to consider that during these centuries when university changed from training clergy to training professionals, that the class system most universities operated in also changed somewhat. Professionalisation had led to a new class of people as the upper class (but not aristocratic) formed from business, law, and medicine, which saw people without titles or royal connections acquire wealth and gain training and professions, and inevitably they wanted to see that success replicated for their children (Heffernan, 2022c; Heffernan & Harpur, 2023). Therefore, while the student base of

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universities changed, their function as far as students went did not. Originally, they had trained people who would lead society through the Church, centuries later they trained people for society’s most prominent roles without religious connections, but with financial capabilities. How universities were funded and governed during this period, and largely up to the Second World War, also tells us a lot about their privileged origins, and why so many of these systemic issues are difficult to change in the twenty-first century. Perhaps one of the first points to note is the size of institutions. It is obvious to state that there were far fewer university students 100 or 150 years ago than there are today, but the numbers involved were miniscule. Location makes a big difference, in 1900 for example, universities had existed in England and Europe for 700  years, almost 300  years in America, just over 100 years in Canada and not even 50 years in Australia. At the extreme, in 1911 Australia had a population of 4.5 million, and yet only 3000 people were enrolled in higher education (Forsyth, 2014). In contrast, today it is not unusual that over 30% (and closer to 40% depending on country), of the population graduating high school will enrol in university from the above-listed areas; in 1900 the percentage was about single percentage points. In the twenty-first century the notion of ‘the one percent’ in terms of the world’s wealthiest people is a commonplace term and despite the fact that few universities would appreciate having their student base referred to in that way (though some universities would cherish it), the one percent is perhaps the most effective way to think about who was attending university at this time. The reality of the period is that universities were not necessarily putting barriers in front of people to ensure only the most privileged in society could attend, the life trajectory and inability to change one’s position that was commonplace in most Western countries at that time created such hurdles that the only people attempting to enter the university sector fit the middle-class and privileged mould. That someone stayed at school beyond post-compulsory education was already unusual and limited to a very select group of people in 1900. Even though public education existed, post-compulsory schooling was largely the domain of the religious and privately funded school sectors, and private tutors. Someone starting post-compulsory education in no way meant they would continue to the end. Thus, the notion of having someone continue in their studies until 17 or 18 years of age when child labour was still somewhat common, and certainly entering the workforce at 13 to 15 was

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commonplace, family financial stability was an absolute prerequisite to continue secondary education. This pattern only continues into tertiary study (Heffernan, 2021). Entering higher education as a teenager to aspire for a professional career in someone’s early twenties required someone to have a vast amount of economic capital behind them during a period where few people had that option available to them. Furthermore, it was not just about the capital to allow someone to not enter the workforce to feed themselves or assist with family finances, it was also about the economic capital to potentially travel to university, live in college, pay tuition, buy books, and partake in the social activities that created the networks that led to employment—and subsequently led to the next generation of family wealth being able to afford to keep children out of the workforce and in university education. With such a very specific set of circumstances allowing someone to study at university, the reasons why institutions did not need to create their own barriers is clear—society did that well enough. There is, predictably, a rather clear consequence to the scenario outlined above, and that is that this system also prevented most people from any marginalised group entering the higher education sector as a student, and thus, later as an employee if that was their career ambition. Where this situation gets more complicated, is in how universities choose to talk about these occurrences. For example, for most universities that began pre-WWI, it is not uncommon that they will discuss when they began admitting women as students on the History or About Us sections of their websites— and often this date will be in the later nineteenth century. It sounds somewhat progressive that many institutions were admitting women 150–200 years ago (remembering that some were earlier, and some much later), but it is necessary to delineate that this in no way meant parity in numbers. By removing barriers preventing women from entering higher education, universities had removed a hurdle, but this made little difference to the myriad social and economic constraints that prevented higher education being a viable pursuit either as a student or as an academic for women. In some fields, women did enrol, and the numbers grew quickly, but on the whole, the date when universities began admitting women was far from any level of women having equal access to higher education. To continue discussing a prominent theme of this book, this section is about the broad historical path of higher education and marginalisation so we will save the detail, or consequences of these situations, for later chapters—but it is important to consider how ostracised any group that was

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not white, middle or upper class, and male was. A common theme that presents itself in university and marginalised research is that the numbers of people from groups marginalised by race, gender, sexual identity, or disability (plus many more) are so underrepresented in the sector that it is difficult to conduct anything beyond smaller, qualitative-style studies. That is to say, large-scale quantitative studies about marginalised groups in higher education are difficult because the numbers to constitute a valid sample size do not exist (Heffernan, 2022c). Though we dissect what it is to be from a marginalised group in later chapters, the process of marginalised groups entering higher education is a necessary discussion as it has clear ties to Bourdieu’s notions of capital and habitus. As we saw in the last chapter, universities accepting women essentially meant removing one barrier—in this case, gender. A prospective woman student in the late nineteenth century would still have to have the capital (be it social or economic) to overcome the barriers that limited education levels. At a time when schooling and private tutoring for the purpose of higher education was limited to the aristocracy and upper classes, few people (regardless of gender) were educated in that way or for that purpose; the likelihood of a woman being educated in such a way were miniscule. The financial constraints of family wealth also meant that the potential woman student did not need to work, but also had the ability to pay tuition and associated costs (such as travel, accommodation, food, etc.) to obtain her degree. However, it should be noted that any woman educated through higher levels of schooling or private tutoring most likely had the financial support needed to undertake university study. A final major (amongst many smaller) barriers for a woman student in the late nineteenth century was of course societal constraints. These were different depending on country or region, but broadly speaking, a woman from a family with the means to educate her and send her to university was much more likely to follow societal norms (or the cultural trajectory for a woman in her position in society) and see her married to increase family ties rather than allow her to enter higher education (Mazon, 2003). The crucial point here is that a significant number of hurdles prevented anyone from entering higher education in the late nineteenth century; lifting the barrier of gender (and only women of course) removed one barrier while many others existed that would ensure university study was only an option to a fraction of one percent of the population. This is also largely how the higher education sector remained until the latter half of the twentieth century.

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After the Second World War The end of WWII marked the beginning of a shift of university numbers, and eventually this shift changed how universities approached students from marginalised backgrounds. Perhaps the first point to note is that WWII, and its aftermath to higher education, had significant variations depending on location. Schemes to see returning soldiers have the option of entering universities readily existed in places that had not been physically impacted by war—such as Australia, Canada, and the United States. These schemes did exist in England and throughout Europe, but rebuilding and recovery programs were often a more prioritised activity that also ran at a cost that most countries did not have freely available (Forsyth, 2014). For several reasons, the post-WWII era led to what would be a higher education boom in terms of number of institutions, available positions to students, and ultimately, widening access. One reason for universities to grow in number, have more student places become available, and increasingly start to remove the social barrier of applicants being from the upper-middle or upper classes is the shift in society as the post-WWII children reached university age. Society in much of the West began to change. This was a time when families had the options for luxury items that did not exist pre-WWII.  Shopping malls were being built, regular families owned one car, sometimes two, and kitchen and laundry appliances became items that were standard in the middle-class American home (Forsyth, 2014). With such a shift in what the household looked like pre-WWII and during the Great Depression, and at this point the family, home, and finances barely resembled life in pre-WWI as far as the West was concerned; it should not come as a surprise that families that now had quite luxurious existences compared to generations before also expected the most for their children. This new level of income and lifestyle meant for many more families, disposable, or excess, income existed. The notion of children going to work at the earliest age possible, or entering high school but not completing high school due to work demands, was no longer as strong as it once was to average families. Similarly, this money ensured the option of paying tuition, and for having children to be away from home, and be a continued family expense into their twenties. That more and more families deemed this to be a worthwhile expense was, as we know from Bourdieu’s work around capital and habitus, an expense to provide their children with enhanced social capital moving into their adult lives, and essentially

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allowing families to buy the cultural trajectory of their children (Bourdieu, 1977, 1985, 1988). However, this was only part of the puzzle. Families may have had more money available to them before for what, at that time, would have once been considered the luxury expense of higher education, but there also had to be places for these students available. Fortunately, just as the post-­ WWII era had led to finances to an increase in student applicants, many governments also saw a new value and need for higher education. This need originated from several perspectives. One that cannot be ignored was the need for technological expertise due to the Cold War. Previous wars had largely been about numbers of soldiers, WWII showed the need for aircraft technology, and scientific knowledge as weapons became far more advanced than simply a matter of standard explosives. This realisation immediately pushed many governments into increasing university sizes and numbers to make sure they were at the forefront of research to protect themselves and their allies. The 1960s and 1970s also saw the professionalisation of industries continue to grow. Whereas centuries before it was medicine and law that were the standout occupations that required university degrees, increasingly all aspects of business, education, or design that had once had apprenticeship-­ models of training, or college training to practical training to satisfy employment requirements, increasingly required university degrees to meet professional standards. That act also ensured the need for universities to grow in size and number as increasingly all of the professional careers required university training which meant making space for future teachers, nurses, accountants, engineers to name only a few (Forsyth, 2014). Another major reason for the growth of universities at this time was due to the economic advantages that came from a more educated population. Just as the West had seen at the start of the century with skilled labourers who could take on skilled work in, for example, factories or construction, it was these people who then earned more money, and subsequently spent more money, who helped increase a nation’s economic growth. This economic benefit originated both through the work they were completing (building items or working on projects that required skilled-labour to be completed) and through the financial contribution they were making to their country’s growth. The same is true during the 1960s and 1970s as governments encouraged people to enrol in higher education courses, often through subsidised tuition schemes. Having an educated population meant more of the population could make things or offer skills that helped

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move the economy of the state forward, while at the same time, they also earned more money to spend which again, helped drive economies forward. A more educated/skilled population (so not just about university qualifications) also had the impact of drawing on government funds less than those without training and skills. A university degree would lead to faster employment, higher salaries, and less time out of work if a job change did happen. Consequently, a university degree meant people were less likely to draw upon, or as regularly, welfare or social payments relating to housing, unemployment, retirement/pension payments which also led to an increased saving to governments (Forsyth, 2014). What this meant for governments across the Western world was a huge increase in higher education institutions being created throughout the twentieth century, both in terms of increasing the size of existing institutions and in terms of creating new ones. This increase thus began the period of mass-market higher education in many countries. The elite and privileged institutions stayed just that, but the option of attending higher education through newly built universities or technical college being transformed into higher education providers, or via the community college system, meant university study was an option for a much larger portion of the population. This expansion was what facilitated the true start of people from marginalised backgrounds successfully entering higher education as students and staff. I have put true in italics because while examples of people from marginalised backgrounds had often existed in isolation for a century or more at this point, it was this period and beyond into the 1980s when we see numbers of people from marginalised backgrounds begin to increase as universities start to make plans and devise strategies for inclusion. What that looked like is the focal point of the coming chapters, but in the context of the history of university and its role in facilitating inclusion, it was largely the 1980s when people from marginalised backgrounds started entering higher education en masse—though at that point, in very limited numbers; particularly given the attitudes towards some areas of the marginalised community (Heffernan, 2022b). Certainly, when someone looks back at educational history, universities in the late 1970s and early 1980s had the appearance of being in the early stages of a place that would become welcoming, and increasingly so, to a wider portion of the population. Governments generally supported higher education, the economic benefit of an educated population drove economies forward, the investments in science and technology had not only got

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passed the fear of the Cold War, but had changed the science and technology landscape. With such support behind higher education, it should not be of a surprise that though they remained (and remain) places inaccessible to some, the societal approach was generally positive which only encouraged more people from larger groups within the community to consider higher education as a viable path both in terms of study and in terms of employment. However, the history of the university beyond this period must also be considered because as much as universities got to be in good positions, where they were growing in appeal and access, that did not last. The shifts that have occurred since the early 1980s to today have subsequently changed the trajectory of what marginalisation looks like in the academy, and those hoping to enter the field. The latter half of the 1980s was the perfect storm of issues to hit higher education with some issues being predictable, and others less so. A slightly predictable occurrence of the massification of higher education (Esson & Ertl, 2016) was that the mass market system occurred to accommodate the growing demand for university places that arose from the 1960s onwards (these dates vary location to location, but this was certainly a time of growth in most countries). Not having enough places was a highly beneficial position for universities to be in as it allowed them to build infrastructure, employ academics, and largely expand relentlessly. Of course, exponential growth does not last forever and once universities, or post-school education, reached a point where the supply of positions was greater than the demand for student places, universities found themselves in difficult positions (Jones, 2022). Classrooms had been built and academics hired, for some in the sector they had known nothing but growth within the sector for their entire careers. Therefore, the oversupply of places was inevitably the first step to universities having to engage in marketing strategies and is the first time we begin to see the increase of interest in university ranking systems. While there is nothing inherently wrong with marketing strategies, they do cost money and require the employment of marketing teams and professionals, or else (at least in the beginning) this work was conducted by consultants. In either instance, the solution to universities starting to see financial deficits due to an oversupply of places was to spend money on marketing staff and materials. University rankings are a slightly different issue because they are important in the context of a university’s marketing, and thus universities will work towards improving their position, but ultimately

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how much these positions alter public thinking is up for debate (Pusser & Marginson, 2013). The top universities in the world may fight for the top position each year, but no one doubts that Oxford, Harvard, Cambridge, Yale, etc. are the world’s dominant institutions. Similarly, within a country, there will likely be a number of top institutions that anyone with an interest in higher education will be aware, and in individual states, territories, cities, or areas, the people in that area will have a general idea of how universities are ranked in terms of prestige or desirability without a rankings system. Yet, the marketing value of being able to say that in institution is number one in a geographic area, a disciplinary area, or regarding its age or ‘type’ of university is a marketable trait and so the games continue (Heffernan & Heffernan, 2018). Therefore, what we see is the oversupply of places begin to be treated with remedies that increase administration costs and advertising costs as institutions begin to fight for their customer base. This scenario would have been largely unthinkable a century before when most countries had a small and limited supply of prestigious and elite universities. Though as the 1980s continued, the rise of administration teams, who had nothing to do with teaching or learning, or academic or student support, began to rise as a strategy to keep institutions viable and operational. The reason for the oversupply is complex, but broadly speaking it is related to the financial downturn of the mid-to-late 1980s and the clear, and less so, consequences of the downturn. There may be an argument to be had in suggesting that universities should have planned better for the day when, in some cases, decades of exponential growth came to an end. There likely is some validity to that argument but of course, when universities in their daily operations did not have enough classrooms, had more applicants than they had positions, and often had governments keen on seeing as many students complete higher education studies as possible, it is difficult to also consider that while one day these pressures may change, the planning and pressures of the day all revolved around expansion. Additionally, some of the consequences of changing moods towards higher education were perhaps a little harder to plan for from a university’s perspective. That financial downtown would lead to fewer students applying for university is perhaps rather predictable. University study is a financial outlay that can rely heavily on parent’s income support in some way, or that the student was comfortable in forgoing several years of salary while they completed their degrees. Financial downturn thus led to fewer families

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being able (or willing) to make multi-year financial commitments to send their children to university. However, that the downturn would occur in many countries at around the same time as many institutions and higher education systems also reached the beginning of supply outstripping demand for university places (and thus seeing the first major turns to marketing begin) is also unfortunate (Heffernan, 2022a). It was perhaps worse enough that these consequences meant that fewer people were enrolling in higher education, a significantly worse problem for the higher education sector’s place in society was that financial downturn also meant fewer jobs for graduates. As universities had reached their peak as places in which students enrolled for the benefit of themselves, and their country in most governments’ views. A lot of this faith had been built on the promise that a university degree meant solid job opportunities that would lead to a lifetime of steady employment, higher salaries, and financial security, and thus secure housing and health, and the other life essentials that could be obtained through steady and reliable employment (Heffernan, 2022b; Raines & McAdams, 2006). This was the mindset that kept families, who may have felt university ‘was not for them’ as Bourdieu would tell us (1988), and otherwise might have encouraged their children to pursue a trade through technical colleges or trade schools, and perhaps not even complete their high school degree, pursuing higher education as a desirable path forward. Remembering that this period, mostly around the late 1980s, is also where we still start to see numbers of students and staff from marginalised groups begin to enter higher education, the loss of social faith in higher education as the way forward for most members of society was a significant backwards step. Universities had been a place worth the potential discomfort of entering for those families and students without the social capital or cultural trajectory to have entered such a place only years before, but with the loss of a university degree equating to a job, belief in the sector dropped. As the financial downturn continued, and had different consequences in different locations, several decades of positive work in communities to make universities part of the landscape and the next step for as many as possible in the education journey was lost, and university degrees largely returned to be the pursuit of the privileged. Even if this was not technically true, that was the perception, and perceptions matter (Forsyth, 2014). Only middle-class families who had been minimally impacted by the financial downturn continued to send their children to university, for many others for whom employment had been the objective and what made the expense

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worthwhile, they stepped back from higher education as the ‘only’ or ‘best’ employment strategy. This brings us firmly into the 1990s, and in a discussion of how political and social impacts affected higher education and how people from marginalised groups interacted in such spaces, what began during this period continues into the 2020s and into the COVID pandemic. It is important to consider that nothing major happened during the beginning of this period; there were no flashpoint moments impacting on higher education. Instead, the higher education sector embarked on three decades of slow changes as competition for students increased, operational funding from governments decreased, and funding for research through grants increased and became more competitive in most global sectors. It could be argued that several of these changes in part occurred because of the social approach to universities. Competition for students grew at first because the sector had grown too large, that competition for students still exists is a result of universities having to grow and modernise, but in most countries the approach to higher education is that it is not for everyone and it is not the best, or only, option in post-secondary schooling. The goodwill built during the 1960s–1980s has been lost, and to some extent, it has been lost because governments have no desire to change that outlook. Higher education went from being for the elite few to the wider masses because governments looked to them for research as the world modernised post-WWII, and because an educated population was better for the economy. In recent decades though, governments have chosen not to focus on research, are less concerned with the benefits of an educated population, and seem happy to ignore the fact that in most countries higher education contributes billions, and hundreds of billions in larger locations, to their economies each year. Why governments have so routinely chosen this path is difficult to understand, but what is much clearer is how they largely gained support for such activities. The loss of public faith in higher education as a place that everyone should have the option of attending, and should aspire to attending if they could, allowed governments to control the narrative. If the population more broadly wanted better funded universities, free or subsidised tuition, governments would be forced to act—it is difficult to picture how different higher education could be if university funding was a regular election issue. However, that is not the case, and that is not the case partly because governments have chosen to frame higher education not as a necessity; and when it is perceived as something for some people and not others,

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widespread support from nation-wide populations is hard to gather. This became abundantly clear during the beginning of the COVID pandemic. As governments around the world struggled to find their own way through unprecedented events, decisions had to be made about which industries, and subsequently which workers, would benefit from financial support and packages. Routinely, higher education was cast aside. Even at times when smaller sectors and private industries were being supported, higher education was left with several years of significant drops in student numbers and subsequently massive cuts to income streams that paid salaries, and few governments aided their universities in any major way. They were able to make such decisions because there was no public outcry, and as much as university sectors may have tried to make as much noise for support as possible, governments were able to rely on the loss of faith in higher education that began in the 1980s by continuing to portray universities as luxury items, and largely places of irrelevance where people go to waste a few years rather than working (Blackmore, 2020). This system worked, tens of thousands of academics and university staff lost their jobs around the world with minimal justification needed by governments for their actions. Thirty years of governments knowing there were benefits to higher education having teetering support (which allows them to give or withdraw funding as they see fit with minimal public interest), and the slow shift away from an adequately funded sector his broadly impacted students and staff in different ways. Perhaps the most obvious shift is most countries turned from not having enough, or having an adequate number, of staff to fill academic roles. Throughout most of the 1960s to late 1980s, or even early 1990s in some locations, the higher education sector was expanding at a rate where not enough people were being conferred with doctorates to fill the positions available as the sector grew. Such a basic explanation of the situation may give slightly distorted views of what it was like for aspiring academics (Heffernan, 2022a). Yes, there was an undersupply, but also, it still took years of hard work through undergraduate courses, postgraduate study, and completing a doctorate, not to mention many more years of tireless effort to ascend the academic hierarchy. However, we can speculate on some general trends. The most common path from doctorate to full-time academic (noting that the tenure system in North America significantly obscures this path) is that while completing a doctorate, a student conducts some teaching or research assistant work to gain experience in the field (this will likely be

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contract work but may resemble full-time employment in terms of hours performed), and inevitably they will create networks and connections. With this experience in hand, following the doctoral journey, in some field postdoctoral appointments are common, or in others the aspiring academic continues in teaching or research assistant roles until they secure a full-time, or ‘permanent’ or ‘continuing’ position. The wording may change, and this does not account for tenure, however, the point is that they have secure employment, and access to entitlements such as retirement plans, healthcare plans, recreational leave, and personal leave. At the same time, it was also very common for people to secure these roles while completing their doctorate. For the most part, all these things still occur today, the difference is the time involved. Over the last 30  years, the rate at which employment is gained has slowed down, which puts people in precarious employment structures for longer. On one hand, this is a simple case of supply versus demand. When there were not enough candidates to fill positions, or were enough candidates to fill the required positions, hiring rounds were common, competition was lower, and experience was less necessary (n.b.: these aspects all revolve around quantity and experience). It is subsequently clear how three decades of the employment market for academics shrinking has had a negative impact for many. Increasingly there were fewer hiring rounds, this meant competition increased at each employment opportunity, and the experience and skills of successful candidates became more demanding and subsequently took longer to acquire. This change may have been a slow shift, but we do need to accept where the sector sits in the 2020s. Therefore, with too many candidates there are rather predictable consequences to employment timelines in that it is taking, on average, longer for people to gain permanent employment. The instance of someone gaining permanent employment while completing their doctorate does still happen, but it is rare. The once relatively short turnaround from gaining a doctorate to securing a postdoctoral position or a continuing position is now much longer. Additionally, the lower the number of employment opportunities that arise in a specific field or disciplinary area, the longer the people in that field have to wait for an opportunity to occur, and then they must contend with the increased competition. This is of course field dependant, but certainly in areas that have fallen out of favour with society, and thus, students, the implications of the rarity of a permanent position becoming available cannot be overlooked. In examples that I have

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witnessed in Australia and the United Kingdom relating to (for example) philosophy or poetry, entire countries or regions of contract employed academics in these fields have applied for a single position. As a permanent role in these fields can occur not several times a year, but once every several years, the competition is relentless. The above may be an extreme example, but the oversupply of doctoral students is also somewhat relative to the size of a field. Thus, even in fields which are large and popular, and lead to most universities making several hires per year such as education, health, or the sciences, the number of contract-employed academics is so high that it is still common for hundreds of applicants to apply to an individual job listing. Earlier in this book during our examination of Bourdieu’s work and what he can tell us about higher education, or even in other books I have written (Heffernan, 2022a) we have touched on what makes for a successful applicant to a role when many have applied. Much of this has had to do with social capital (such as networks and network advantages), and academic capital (that is often accrued through social capital) (Harris et  al., 2022; Heffernan, 2020a, 2020b, 2021). However, an equally valuable consideration (or maybe more so considering the consequences) concerns what happens to those who are not successful as these are the people who remain trapped in the unstable, unpredictable nature of contract and sessional work filling these gaps. As we touched upon earlier, more often than not, successful candidates have academic capital that began accumulating the moment they first stepped inside the university as an undergraduate. To oversimplify the example, this is the repercussion of the white, middle-class person entering the field, having immediate connections with their lecturers and tutors who are also white and middle class as they share similar habitus and cultural trajectories. These connections continue into postgraduate classes, and once in doctoral study, it is again these relationships that led the white middle class students to be the first choice for teaching assistants and research assistant work, and likely being named on publications and grants with their supervisors, and this is the capital that leads to permanent employment. For those without this capital, such as marginalised students, they are from the onset always behind. In the case of this example, I will put aside all of the reasons marginalised students are less likely to pursue a career in academia, but if they do, they will often be one or two steps behind their privileged peers. They will create relationships with their lecturers and tutors, but the privileged students by that time have built closer

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relationships. The marginalised students will get teaching and research experience, but it will likely be teaching experience and the best research assistant positions will have already gone to the privileged students with the stronger relationships. It is this trajectory that leads white middle-class students to full-time employment, and leaves marginalised students in precarious employment situations. The true irony in this situation, however, is that this leaves aspiring marginalised academics, the ones who can often least afford to be in precarious employment long-term, without stable employment—while it is the students who likely do have the social and economic capital to survive long-term precarious employment, who are placed in permanent roles first. This scenario then raises the question of, who can wait for employment opportunities to occur? Perhaps the largest reason that impacts on how long someone can wait for precarious employment is finances. Can they survive in precarious employment in terms of—is the work they can gain from precarious employment paid enough? Can they survive the semester breaks or holiday periods when casual employees or those on short-term contracts are unlikely to receive pay as they do not accrue much (if any) recreational leave? Can their own lives move forward (are they able to get a loan for a car, or rent a house, or buy a house etc.) without permanent employment? Can they stay in academia, potentially for year after year, enduring these circumstances without the certainty of permanent employment when offers in other industries maybe present? The people that tend to answer yes to the above questions are those from the white, able-bodied, middle classes. Thus, even when the privileged academics without full-time employment are not successful in the first rounds of job opportunities, they are the ones who are likely going to be able to hold out longest and therefore, once again be the ones to secure employment over their marginalised colleagues. Bourdieu knew this, and wrote about it at length (1988). He explained how the working-class student was at a severe disadvantage in most classroom settings. Bourdieu was not wrong, education is a middle-class activity and occupation, the habitus of most in the field and those who are most successful relates to aspects associated with the middle classes. However, the one caveat I would make to this framing is that in the twenty-first-century working class does not always equate to low-income as has been previously discussed in this book. More common reasons that we see some people limited in how they can wait for a continuing position to occur are those tied closely to gender.

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As we have already touched on, men are more likely to use their networks for career progression rather than career support (Harris et  al., 2022; Heffernan, 2022c), and other genders (similar to races) are so underrepresented in the academy that we primarily only have data relating to men and women (Fan et al., 2019; Hendrix, 1998; Rubin, 1998). However, a brief consideration of gender roles on its own shows us how women, the now majority graduate and employee of most universities, are marginalised through societal expectations and the fact that men remain a majority holder of university governance roles. Thus, as Bourdieu would tell us, women may be marginalised, but marginalisation does not always equate to minority, it is equally tied to how people are represented in the circle of power (Bourdieu, 1977), and in universities, that remains the domain of white men. For women, they remain the primary family caregiver of their immediate family (their children), but they are also likely to be the ones to provide care to elderly parents during sickness and/or their final years if end-of-life sickness occurs. These circumstances can cause a multitude of problems to women hoping to establish careers. For those precariously employed during this period, it is likely that any caregiver activity will have negative consequences on securing permanent employment. Having children or providing care takes women out of the academic environment and thus they are not gaining teaching or research experience, or publishing or working with research teams, while men and those without these pressures are continuing with the activities that lead to employment. For many, there is also a time-limit factor to these activities. How long can they stay trying to make an academic career ‘work’ when it is full-time employment that will lead to a steady income, healthcare, maternity leave, personal leave? If someone who is precariously employed has to step out of the academy for a year or more to care for a family member, they may lose their position or at least see it altered and thus find themselves having taken several steps backwards from finding continuing employment. If they do have steady employment, however, even if they need to step away from their role for a period that requires them to go without pay, they still have a role to return to—but the time it takes to gain that role has increased significantly. People with disabilities can experience similar circumstances. Disabilities can originate from several places and these will have different consequences. Sensory, mobility, or neurodivergence, for example, will themselves have their own sets of challenges, but within each of those categories

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there remains a myriad other issues that may impact on how the individual needs to work. What is not in doubt, however, is that a disability costs money to an individual’s family as they grow up, and to them as they are an adult (Reichman et al., 2008). However, in most cases, a disability is likely to put someone behind their privileged peers when it comes to being invited onto the tasks that can make an academic career, and thus it is again the case that those who most likely need financial stability to survive, are more likely to remain in precarious employment while their privileged counterparts gain the available opportunities. Thus, it is academics with disabilities who are likely to look to take their skills elsewhere and towards faster and more secure employment. Once again, and as with the above examples, the consequence is that people from marginalised communities are being made to wait longer for steady employment, and therefore are more likely to leave the academy, which only encourages more able-­ bodied, white, middle-class men into positions, and subsequently these are the people most likely to quickly climb that ladder. This is an important distinction to make because it highlights that ‘getting onto the field’ as Bourdieu would tell us (1977), even in a permanent role away from precarious employment does not signify the beginning of an equitable career progression for marginalised academics. For the same reasons that set marginalised academics behind their privileged peers in gaining teaching and research assistant roles in the first place (most notably this occurs after the students who could make immediate connections with their supervisors), largely transfers to delaying career progressing in permanent roles. We know that those with publication and grant success are likely to be streamlined into roles that focus more on research, while those without that success are more likely to find themselves tasked with duties around teaching and administration (Heffernan, 2020a). As those with research and grant success coming into permanent employment likely gained that momentum through networks which tend to benefit privileged men, the very start of a permanent and full-time role is therefore not a clean slate or a new start, it is a continuation of inequities that have already surrounded marginalised academics for several years. As such, it should not be surprising that these inequities continue through careers and into prospects of entering the professoriate or leadership roles. The fastest career progressions are more often than not left to those with research profiles and grant success; the capitals the university values most. Thus, even if a privileged and a marginalised academic are employed by a university on the same day and in similar roles, Bourdieu (1988) also

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indicates that it will be the privileged hire who comes in with their own research and grant history, that ensures they are given extra research opportunities, and subsequently rises through the ranks quickly. However, it is also important to consider that once we are examining the professoriate or leadership roles, these positions are minute in number. No longer are we asking questions about how much longer will it take an academic from a marginalised background to reach these positions, we need to consider if they will ever reach these academic heights. Sadly, at this point in time, this is not the case, the number of privileged men in the professoriate and leadership roles is evidence enough that historically the trajectory of new hires is such that the path to full-professor or faculty or institutional leadership is at best slowed, but is much more likely, non-existent. There are some minor exceptions to this rule, but they tend to be limited to those areas that have opted for a hyper-managerial/corporate model of higher education, thus, most notably Australia (Smyth, 2017; Zipin, 2006). In these climates, teaching and administration can be a path forward for promotion with many universities (covering the full breadth of size, wealth, and prestige) seeing teaching taking people to associate professor/reader/senior lecturer level, and then faculty and university leadership positions (which frequently come with professorships) for administration and leadership roles. This scenario provides a positive in that it provides a career path for those not privileged enough to be given the research opportunities. However, I would argue that this positive has come at a much greater negative of aiding in the further steps towards the university as little more than a company selling degrees and profitable research, and thus, shying away from courses of thinking (rather than graduate income or immediate employability), and research not connected to government priorities that is not likely to attract funding from industry or business partners. A final overarching aspect of how the development of universities has changed over the course of higher education to exclude, be a little more inclusive, and now be a little more inclusive but with many caveats, is the impact of COVID. As much as the following chapters analyse the historical changes of exclusion and inclusion of marginalised people in higher education, COVID has proven to be an altogether different beast in terms of what it has done to the sector. Perhaps the biggest impact of COVID has collectively been around university funding and income. In many Western countries as support packages were being established for different industries, higher education

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was not one of those. As was touched on previously in this chapter, many governments relied on the viewpoint that universities were unnecessary are a luxury item, and subsequently a lot of private industries were supported while hundreds of thousands of university staff globally lost their jobs. To make matters worse, student enrolments in most disciplinary areas in most universities decreased as international travel became largely impossible in some areas, and even national travel became difficult in many other areas (Thatcher et al., 2020). The counterpoint to make about the financial situation that COVID put many universities into is that how universities responded was completely predictable. In so many instances where institutions told their staff ‘we have to do this because of the pandemic’, many researchers only saw universities escalating plans and processes that were already in place (Blackmore, 2020). The idea that faculties needed restructuring, administration and professional services needed to be downsized, that course offerings needed to be reviewed so the economically unviable offerings can be cut are now routinely touted by management as the consequence of COVID, but these changes are in fact now just occurring in such bigger numbers to hide the fact this was already happening. Essentially, using COVID was an excuse to increase the profits of the enterprise university by removing everything but the most profitable courses, research, and staff was the opportunity the managerial university was waiting for and had been working towards for decades (Smyth, 2017).

Summary Where does this leave marginalised people in the university as we creep closer towards the mid-twenty-first century? We will explore this over the coming chapters, however, what is important to consider now is how universities had made classrooms and offices more accommodating to marginalised staff and students over the last several decades. Frequently the answer is through bridging and support programs and services for students, and through more equitable hiring and support options for staff. The post-COVID issue is that many of these are the support services that were removed. Thus, we end in a situation where there is no administrative reason preventing students from marginalised backgrounds applying to university, or staff looking for employment, but the services that have enabled this success in the past have largely been removed.

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There are two consequences to consider here though. Firstly, at the time of writing this book, things are looking to improve. International travel is opening up, international students are beginning to return to major education hubs around the world and as student numbers increase, so too does the financial opportunities that lead to the support services available to staff and students in pre-COVID times. However, the second consequence is a much clearer example that has been discussed in this book before and will be discussed again. When universities removed support systems, the number of applicants, successful applicants, course completions, and graduations of students from marginalised backgrounds shrank (Heffernan, 2022b). When faculties were downsized, competition grew, which further pushed marginalised academics away from full-time employment. This issue in both instances, is that it was support services and finances that had allowed marginalised staff and students into the academy. The academy never made any major attempt to change to become a more inclusive space, they simply spent money to address the problem and for several decades that provided a somewhat effective Band-­ Aid measure. Yet as the money dwindled, and dried up during COVID, it became clear just how closed-off higher education remains. This is a major factor of this book. Marginalised people, who now make up a majority of the university sector in terms of students and employees, have been allowed into the sector, have been allowed to become the cogs that make the machine work, but we have not been included in changing this system so that marginalised students can gain entry into classrooms, and marginalised academics have equitable access to employment and career progress without relying on the academy to allow this to happen. The path forward is not clear, it may mean those few marginalised people in power need to consider the prospects of hostile takeovers of systems designed by and for the white middle classes. Ultimately though, COVID made it clear that the higher education sector has not become a more equitable space, it just got much better at disguising its prejudice.

References Blackmore, J. (2020). The carelessness of entrepreneurial universities in a world risk society: A feminist reflection on the impact of Covid-19 in Australia. Higher Education Research & Development, 39(7), 1332–1336. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/07294360.2020.1825348

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Bloom, A. (2012). Closing of the American mind: How higher education has failed democracy and impoverished the souls of today’s students. Simon & Schuster. Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice (R. Nice, Trans.). Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1985). The forms of capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 46–58). Greenwood. Bourdieu, P. (1988). Homo academicus (P. Collier, Trans.). Polity. Esson, J., & Ertl, H. (2016). No point worrying? Potential undergraduates, study-­ related debt, and the financial allure of higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 41(7), 1265–1280. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2014.968542 Fan, Y., Shepherd, L., Slavich, D., Waters, D., Stone, M., Abel, R., & Johnston, E. (2019). Gender and cultural bias in student evaluations: Why representation matters. PLOS ONE, 14(2). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0209749 Forsyth, H. (2014). A history of the modern Australian university. NewSouth Publishing. Grenfell, M. (2014). Pierre Bourdieu: Key concepts. Routledge. Harris, J., Smithers, K., Spina, N., & Heffernan, T. (2022). Disrupting dominant discourses of the other: Examining experiences of contract researchers in the academy. Studies in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/0307507 9.2022.2105831 Heffernan, T. (2020a). Examining university leadership and the increase in workplace hostility through a Bourdieusian lens. Higher Education Quarterly, 75(2), 199–211. https://doi.org/10.1111/hequ.12272 Heffernan, T. (2020b). There’s no career in academia without networks’: Academic networks and career trajectory. Higher Education Research and Development. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2020.1799948 Heffernan, T. (2021). History of education in Australia. Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Education. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/97801902 64093.013.1459 Heffernan, T. (2022a). Bourdieu and higher education: Life in the modern university. Springer. Heffernan, T. (2022b). Forty years of social justice research in Australasia: Examining equity in inequitable settings. Higher Education Research and Development, 41(1), 48–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2021.2011152 Heffernan, T. (2022c). Sexism, racism, prejudice, and bias: A literature review and synthesis of research surrounding student evaluations of courses and teaching. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 47(1), 144–154. Heffernan, T., & Harpur, P. (2023). Discrimination against academics and career implications of student evaluations: University policy versus legal compliance. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.108 0/02602938.2023.2225806

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Heffernan, T., & Heffernan, A. (2018). Language games: University responses to ranking metrics. Higher Education Quarterly, 72(1), 29–39. https://doi. org/10.1111/hequ.12139 Hendrix, K. (1998). Student perceptions of the influence of race on professor credibility. Journal of Black Studies, 28, 738–764. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 002193479802800604 Jones, S. (2022). Universities under fire: Hostile discourses and integrity deficits in higher education. Palgrave Macmillan. Mayrl, D., & Uecker, J. (2011). Higher education and religious liberalization among young adults. Social Forces, 90, 181–208. Mazon, P. (2003). Gender and the modern research university. Stanford University Press. Pusser, B., & Marginson, S. (2013). University rankings in critical perspective. The Journal of Higher Education, 84(4), 544–568. https://doi.org/10.1353/ jhe.2013.0022 Raines, J., & McAdams, C. B. (2006). College and social class: The broken promise of America. CrossCurrents, 56(1), 46–57. Reichman, N. E., Corman, H., & Noonan, K. (2008). Impact of child disability on the family. Maternal and Child Health Journal, 12, 679–683. https://link. springer.com/article/10.1007/s10995-­007-­0307-­z Rubin, D. (1998). Help! My professor (or doctor or boss) doesn’t talk English. In J.  Martin, T.  Nakayama, & L.  Flores (Eds.), Readings in cultural contexts (pp. 149–159). Mayfield. Scobey, D. (2016). Marginalized majority: Non-traditional students and the equity imperative. Diversity and Democracy, 19(1). https://www.aacu.org/ diversitydemocracy/2016/winter/scobey Smyth, J. (2017). The toxic university: Zombie leadership, academic rock stars and neoliberal ideology. Springer. Thatcher, A., Zhang, M., Todoroski, H., Chau, A., Wang, J., & Liang, G. (2020). Predicting the impact of COVID-19 on Australian universities. Journal of Risk and Financial Management, 13(9), 188. Zipin, L. (2006). Governing Australia’s universities: The managerial strong-­ arming of academic agency. Social Alternatives, 25(2), 26–31.

CHAPTER 5

Disability in Higher Education

Disability inclusion rates in universities are different country to country, university to university, and faculty to faculty which makes an accurate estimate of overall numbers difficult to determine. Like so many aspects connected with marginalised groups, the research does not always exist and even when someone commits to trying to determine answers around inclusion rates, different institutions use different criteria and we immediately reach hurdles around disclosure and only knowing what universities and governments want the public or researchers to know. Nonetheless, higher education inclusion tends to hover at anywhere from just below 7% to over 10%, and the rates appear to be increasing year-over-year, though early research suggests this figure encountered a slight downturn as COVID took hold (Bell & Zamani-Gallaher, 2017). As earlier chapters have examined how the expansion of the higher education sector was in part responsible for allowing people that were not men, were not white, and not the middle classes entering higher education from perhaps the 1970s to the early 1990s onwards, depending on location, it is worth noting that disability played a slightly different role in this space. This may have been the period where disabled students and staff began to appear in universities, but a few caveats to this must be considered. The first is that one-off exceptions are good for signifying the start of a process, but we must be careful to remember that the inclusion of a university’s first disabled student or disabled staff member does not equate

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to equity; it means one person has been included who previously would have been excluded. Therefore, we need to be cautious of how we interpret claims or findings. We also need to consider who was being accepted into the university in the beginning, and what accommodations had to be made because even as disabled students and staff began to enter the university, this process began with certain people with certain disabilities being allowed into the space. I consider this circumstance as universities originally opening the one ‘closed gate’ a small group of people faced to enter the ‘field’ of the university as Bourdieu (1977, 1988) would have told us. That is to say, the first students and staff to enter the university were largely those who fit the criteria in all but one section. Thus, the university was welcoming mostly white, middle-class men, who had a mobility or perhaps sensory disability. In many Western countries, this began after the Second World War as soldiers returned home with physical disabilities. A commitment to those who served in the military, universities and the governments funding them being able to contend with mobility and minor sensory issues, and needing a generation of men to take up employment were all motivating factors in seeing disability begin to have a place in the university sector (Forsyth, 2014). As positive a step as seeing some disabled students and staff enter universities more than half a century ago was, for those with other disabilities, and those aspiring disabled staff and students with multiple disabilities or who had a disability and were part of other marginalised groups, acceptance into the academy was a much longer process. Researchers have known for decades that universities, and indeed faculties, have had their own perspectives on disability inclusion and this has made a significant differenced to what barriers they removed, who was allowed in, and what level of support they would receive. For example, Meekosha et al. (1991) argued more than three decades ago that disabled staff and students were entering universities at ever-increasing rates (a point that remains true today). However, even in the early 1990s, they knew access was not equality. Meekosha et  al. (1991) states that disabled students and staff were entering universities and then they had to hope that their institution caught up to their needs and provided the support they needed to allow them to achieve academically and realise the same career goals as their able-bodied peers. What is much harder to track about this circumstance is data regarding how often this did not happen. We know that disabled students and academics have a higher attrition rate, but research about why people have left the academy is rare.

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The result of this research in the twenty-first century is that we have a strong body of work focusing on a vast range of issues where disability in higher education is concerned. Yet what this chapter shows is that for the immense body of knowledge that is being created, we need researchers, academics, and administrators to step back, examine all the available information, assess what does and does not work, and consider how it can be applied in their own classrooms, faculty, or institution.

A Note on Disability Throughout this book, and particularly this chapter, I have used words like ‘marginalised’ and ‘disability’ with the knowledge that these terms are broad phrases that encompass a whole world of differences and variation. Therefore, it is necessary to point out how diverse disability can be (even if we tend to look at it as a singular issue). Disability is a single word that covers a significant number of different needs, abilities, and responses when discussing higher education. Or, as Adams et al. (2015, p. 5) suggests, ‘disability encompasses a broad range of bodily, cognitive, and sensory differences and capacities’. These differences inevitably mean people approach disability, or aspects of disability, with different and ever-­ changing views. Therefore, it is crucial to note that when discussing disability, that while society, and researchers, can have a general, or a floating and almost ever-changing understanding and definition of what disability is and disability can involve (Rowan, 2019), we also have disabled people with very specific needs, who need very specific support. As a disabled researcher, I will also take the beginning of this chapter to highlight some aspects of marginalisation in the higher education sector. We know disabled and marginalised students and academics have lower rates of completion, employment, and career progress, but so often these differences occur not because of disability or factors relating to marginalisation, they happen because of the barriers society has formed. Those barriers are what cause marginalisation because it is those barriers that prevent enrolment at the same rate, students receiving grades at the same level, aspiring academics of securing employment, or seeing their careers progress at the same rate as their privileged peers. Thus, it is not disability or other marginalising factors that cause differences, but it is peoples’ approaches to them. In the case of disability, the barriers people face can be those created—such as making spaces difficult or impossible to navigate

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for those with physical or sensory differences. However, the barriers can also be attitudes-based. Barriers can be created that emotionally or collegially separate disabled people from their peers due to attitudes about what a disabled person can do; a scenario that also has clear implications to other marginalised groups and the privileged view and perceptions of them (Baines, 2014). At the same time, these attitudes often reflect how, or if, disabled and marginalised people should be supported. Yet, I will say here as I have said before in this book, much greater success is likely to be achieved for marginalised students and staff if they are asked what support they need, and not told what support they require. This chapter (and book) also uses language suggested via the social model of disability. Not only does the social model view barriers rather than abilities being the construct that prevents success, it also calls for the adoption of terms like ‘disabled person’ or disabled student’ rather than, for example ‘students with disabilities’. This is because a disability is not an appendage to who someone is—they are who they are; it is only because of societal barriers that any reference to disability must be made (Goodley, 2001). To take this notion one step further, this book has also moved beyond the idea of visible and invisible disability to include the language of apparent and intermittently apparent disabilities. This is because in society, the classroom, or the workplace, it is often not a case of disabilities being either visible or invisible in a binary way. As an example from someone who is blind, if a person marginalised by blindness does not have a visible or invisible disability, their blindness is apparent because of the situation and the barriers placed in front of them. A blind person in their own home or office (a place where they are familiar) may meet someone or have a discussion with someone and their blindness is not apparent. However, if that person meets people outside the home, or in a location where they are not familiar, then their blindness will potentially be immediately apparent. Thus, their disability may not be a case of visible or invisible, it is much more likely apparent or intermittently apparent depending on the situation. Finally, terms like apparent and intermittently apparent disabilities might prompt others to consider that the barriers disabled people face are not set, they are floating, and sometimes even small adjustments can make a significant difference to how someone can navigate and exist within a space (Price, 2015).

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Progress Made, but Still Not There I suspect few people in disability or higher education research would not agree that progress has been made regarding disability inclusion. Fifty years ago, most disabled people would have been excluded, and during the twenty-first century, disabled people with many ability differences and those from other marginalised groups (remembering the role whiteness, middle-classness, and often being male play in university success) has seen their inclusion grow (Pumfrey, 2010). However, we must ask the question of what does this inclusion look like in practice? Many studies point to the fact that research on disability in higher education does not pair with the size and rate that disabled students and staff are entering universities. Despite the surge over the last few decades of disabled people entering the classrooms and corridors, and the increase in research about student success and academic career progression, so often disability is an element that does not factor in these studies in any significant way (Gelbar et al., 2015; Kimball & Thoma, 2019). While this research trend has clear consequences to what we know about disabled people in universities, their struggles, what is working, what is not working, and how they can better be supported, this scenario should not come as a surprise. Wider research on marginalised students and staff in universities has for decades pointed to the fact that individual marginalised groups (for example, those marginalised by disability, race, gender, sexual identity, and class) are so underrepresented in the academy that it makes data collection difficult, and sample sizes when compared to other, non-­marginalised groups, appear insignificant and thus difficult to get comparative studies through the peer-review process and into publication (Heffernan, 2022a; Heffernan & Harpur, 2023; Hendrix, 1998; Rubin, 1998). The lack of research even in the twenty-first century has been noted as having significant consequences in the field disabled people are entering when they walk through the gates of a university. Ryan (2011) posed the question of what exactly are disabled people gaining access to when they enter the academy? In this scenario, Ryan highlights a point that has been made before in this book. That is, removing (or partly removing) barriers to access an institution either as a student or staff member is vital, but the value of removing these barriers falls into question if all the systemic obstacles preventing equality in academic or career success and outcomes remain in place once inside the gates. This is, of course, not a new finding;

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Bourdieu knew it decades ago (Bourdieu, 1988), I have written about it (Heffernan, 2022b), and Ryan (2007) has also written about the practical consequences of disabled students being allowed to enter the field of the university, only to find no support once inside, almost two decades ago. The realisation that attention needs to be paid to disabled people (and marginalised people) once they have entered the academy is a factor that is acknowledged and is increasing as the rate of research grows. The difficulty of this task, however, has not been lost on researchers. Kioko and Makoelle (2014) argue that the best way to dissect the complexity of this issue was to facilitate discussions between disabled students and their lecturers to try and understand what the problems were, what was needed, but also what the perceptions of the lecturers were and what limitations they faced in supporting disabled students. Knowing the best way forward was via the above methods and bringing in the entire university community to understand what support was needed, and how best to offer this support, has played a strong role in how disability research has been shaped in recent years. Researchers have highlighted how the correct support needs to be identified and enacted if the classroom and academy is to act as a singular community, not separated by different needs. This means removing the barriers (not where possible, but removing all of the barriers) so that the academy offers the same to everyone, and enables everyone the same opportunities to excel (Ehlinger & Ropers, 2020). Researchers have nonetheless highlighted how difficult this task is to complete. We will further explore the reasons in this chapter, but broadly the issues with implementation tend to be regarding gaps in policy creation and implementation. Thus, the policies that are being created are too broad to encompass the many different barriers that stand in front of equitable settings for disabled people in universities (Gow et al., 2020). A secondary issue to this point is that policies need to account for the different barriers people face, and how each barrier might impact on a different person’s learning or career. However, what this looks like is also different in every faculty or field of the university—it is very clear that policies around equity barriers in a laboratory are likely to be different to those in a humanities setting. It therefore becomes clear why broad policies are problematic and often face issues when being applied to the great variance of settings within a university. However, it can also not be denied that some issues with policy implementation are simply that faculties choose not to adopt policies in the correct way (Gow et al., 2020). This scenario

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might occur because the policies do not fit properly within a faculty, the policies are deemed too hard to implement or use too many resources, or doing so is simply not a priority within the faculty regardless of the consequences. The notion that implementing policies may not be happening simply because they are not a priority or are too difficult is a sad reality of not just approaches to disability, but also some approaches to marginalised groups in higher education more generally. I would like to suggest that this does not occur due to malice (though I know in some instances that will be the case), and is much more likely to occur because people are already overworked, resources are already stretched beyond capacity, and failing to see these policies implemented correctly are in fact only one of many tasks not being met in an ever-pressurised sector. Nonetheless, we also know these gaps in policies and policy implementation are happening because of staff perceptions to disability (and other marginalised groups), lack of staff training, and that many people only associate disability with disabilities they can see (Collins et al., 2019). Most groups/people also underestimate the rate of disability in the sector because they fail to consider people with intermittently apparent disabilities that have not been identified. However, it is not the duty of a disabled person to alert people of their disability on their first meeting. That we know disabled people in higher education are an ever-growing portion of the student and staff population should be enough for all institutions and faculties to prioritise policy revision and implementation to remove the barriers that remain (Collins et al., 2019).

Disability Barriers A more detailed analysis of the barriers disabled students and staff face in higher education helps demonstrate how so often, in study after study, in locations around the globe, the findings are always largely the same. It is almost as if the international higher education sector has reached the status quo in their ability to accommodate the needs of disabled people. To continue the discussion of the routinely cited barriers discussed above, commonly focused on further limitations include those experienced from the student perspective (Melero et al., 2018; Toutain, 2019). They collectively found that for people with invisible or intermittently apparent disabilities, the frequencies with which they receive negative reactions to disclosing their disabilities (whether it be from students, staff,

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or administration and leadership members) often prompted them to not disclose their disabilities and therefore see many barriers remain in place. For people in this category, the barrier of the negative reaction is sizeable enough to prevent them seeking further assistance. When disabled people do disclose their disabilities, or they are visible or apparent, that does not mean assistance is granted, or the best use of the support policies is applied. Time and time again, Toutain (2019) highlighted that disabled people continue to be tasked with the role of searching through support services and studying policy documents themselves to know what services and options they have available to them. Which again, means we see the emphasis on the time and effort involved to remove barriers being placed on the person already blocked by several barriers, and not by the institution with the resources to remove the barriers. This situation can also be further scaled up in consequence when, even if the student meets with support services or a staff member with human resources, there is a disconnect between the disabled person’s needs, the university employee’s understanding of what the disabled person requires, and subsequently the support offered. Such instances can also lead to the circumstance of the assisting employee’s misunderstanding leading to the wrong support being offered, because they do not understand the disabled person’s situation in its entirety. The notion of the university understanding the situation is also an issue commonly spoken about by disabled people in higher education as they feel the university is only willing to act on disabilities they believe have been adequately documented. Again, we see this placing an onus of proof on the person facing the barrier. Furthermore, the idea that it is the duty of the disabled person to provide evidence of the disability (and subsequently need for support) places this burden on the disabled person to have the time, ability, and finances to collect this evidence—which will often involve visits to medical specialists. When disabled people are known to statistically have a greater chance of lower finances and lower mobility options (Heffernan, 2022c), the idea that policies exist that place the burden of proof on them before the university will provide support is a difficult policy to tolerate. Questions can also be raised over the time required to complete these requests. If a student beginning their studies, and perhaps to a lesser extent a staff member beginning their job, is told to gain evidence that they do not already have access to, then the time required to gain these documents is time they are not supported in their studies or work. Students may fall behind before

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the support is offered, and disabled students and staff may both fall victim to negative first impressions of their work and capabilities. A worthy point to note about first impressions and disability, regardless of it being apparent or intermittently apparent, is that this is taking place in a sector where nobody questions or doubts the prominence of disability. Obermark’s work (2019) highlights that whether it be students, staff, or those within administrative processes, people know disability is everywhere in higher education, which raises the question of why is it not a higher priority? Obermark (2019) argues that while on one hand everyone acknowledges that disability in higher education exists and will claim that access and equity is one of their core values in their mission statements, on the other hand, they so often ignore that this fact exists, making routes for access difficult, and persisting with ‘mazelike’ (p. 180) policy and support systems that disadvantage disabled people. Timmerman and Mulvihill’s (2015) work also makes a valuable contribution about this point as their research with disabled people demonstrates how they are always told to maintain a positive attitude and be the first to fight for themselves and their rights. Such advice may appear sound, but it again sees the burden of gaining access and equity placed on the person already at a disadvantage. In a higher education setting, the student or staff member having to fight for access is having to use their own time and their own resources, while those without barriers placed in front of them are able to continue learning or continue working. Therefore, further putting the disabled person behind, and at an increasing study or work disadvantage while they fight for equity. In terms of the barriers placed in front of disabled students and staff, it is also necessary to consider what steps are being taken to remove those barriers, provide access, and increase equity. This is a necessary critique to make because as bad as it is when institutions do very little, we do have to assess what happens when they take actions. Spier and Natalier (2021) demonstrate that the adjustments being made usually fall into one of three categories. The first is adjustments that remove the barrier, this is perhaps predictably the best scenario short of no barrier existing in the first place. The second type of adjustment are those that do not remove the barrier, but instead enable the disabled person to circumvent them. The third is when adjustments are made based on assumptions, either by an individual in administration who is unsure of what the barriers actually are, or due to blanket policies that in reality fall short of providing a lot of disabled people with the support they need. A secondary point to note about

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adjustments based on assumption is that even when they do not work, the disabled person is still told that adjustment is enough and will provide equity (Spier & Natalier, 2021). Again, much of the research about these topics is also aware that the visibleness or apparentness of a disability makes a difference to how disabled people are approached and what supports are offered. The fact that we know those with visible disabilities, or disabilities that are intermittently apparent but currently detectable, tend to be offered more support and in a short timeframe highlights the further importance of examining what we know about the wider perceptions towards disability in the higher education sector (Timmerman & Mulvihill, 2015).

Perceptions of Disability That perceptions of disability play a major role in how disabled staff and students can access higher education as a place of learning or a workplace is not a new finding. However, what role disability can play is an area in need of further investigation because even as ideas of disability change, and often become more accommodating and the support continues to be increased, the perceptions also change. As was touched on in the section above, few people question that disability is not everywhere in higher education in the twenty-first century (Obermark, 2019), but that does not alter the significance of peoples’ perceptions of what disability can involve. Almost two decades ago, it was noted that perceptions of disability were problematic in higher education because people understood what was happening in a general sense, but that did not mean they were able or willing to consider how disability, and the specifics of each disability, would fit into a classroom or office. Thus, even in the early 2000s, researchers knew that for the most part, perceptions towards disability were not going to naturally refine themselves into an equitable understanding of what disability was or involved, or how it could be supported (Denhart, 2008). To try and improve the perceptions of disability, the last 20 years of disability research has continuously called for institution and faculty awareness, the need for support services to be more tailored in their approach to support to ensure individual needs are catered for, and thus the need for more university engagement with disabled students and staff to determine what they need for a more equitable experience and to help increase the outcomes of their learning or work (Denhart, 2008).

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However, despite these calls (and they are constantly repeated calls that go far beyond the examples listed in this chapter), we need to question how successful universities have been at raising awareness and creating more equitable environments. I would suggest the answer is that steps forward have been taken. Universities know they need to do more for their disabled members and accommodations are being made (Toutain, 2019). The issue seems to be that despite universities knowing they must take action, the stigma of disability still exists—and it is the stigma of disability that continues to plague disabled peoples’ attempts to see the society-formed barriers removed from in front of them. As has already been mentioned in this chapter, a primary factor shaping the perceptions and stigma of disability is the connection to visible, invisible, apparent, or intermittently apparent disabilities. Much of the research in this area points to the same findings—people with disabilities that can be immediately determined by the people they are associating with have fewer negative experiences and receive more support than those with invisible or currently non-apparent disabilities who instead have to disclose their disability. This is also why we see disabled people less inclined to disclose their disability if they feel that is an option (Toutain, 2019). Research has been conducted on the perceptions of visibly disabled people, and those with hidden disabilities after the disability has been disclosed. and the findings are highly negative for those with hidden disabilities. People with visible disabilities are viewed as more personable and academically capable then those who disclose their disabilities. Of greater negative consequences though, those who have had to disclose their disabilities are most often viewed as being disruptive (Akin & Huang, 2019). While we know what people feel about disability, we do not really know why, which leaves us to have to make some assumptions. On one hand, Bourdieu would highlight that there is an amount of social capital attributed to those with visible disabilities. The fact that they are apparent, that they do not have to be disclosed, and upon first meeting, it is clear the disabled person is facing barriers inevitably affords them social capital that equates to being seen as more likeable, more capable, and less disruptive, than those who do not have visible disabilities. Those who need to disclose disabilities are not provided with this social capital, and the consequences are rather extreme, and it leads to questions about what is a ‘real’ disability? Is it a real disability if it is not visible and needs to be disclosed? If the disability is not apparent, is it really that bad? The answer to these

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questions is that, yes it is a real disability, yes it is that bad, and yes the barriers placed in front of the person are significant. It is sadly this exact mindset that leads to people with invisible or intermittently apparent disabilities facing the eternal question of ‘but how disabled are you?’ and the subsequent notion of ‘you’re not disabled enough’ (Kašperová, 2021). Unfortunately, this tends to be the status quo as we approach the mid-­ twenty-­first century. For decades people have known issues are originating from the perceptions of disability, and programs and systems have been put in place to counter these effects. Yet the research and experiences of disabled people in higher education continue to suggest that first impressions count, and it is difficult to break down those social barriers of perception once they have been created.

School-to-University Transition An aspect of the perceptions and disclosure issues around disability in higher education where undergraduate students are concerned begins with the transition period from high school to university. Though these studies are predictably focused on the rather select group of high school graduates entering university (in the scheme of all those entering higher education), a brief examination of what we know about these scenarios is widely informative to all those trying to understand disability in university settings. What we know has to happen is relatively clear from what has already been discussed in this chapter. The issue is that we know what needs to happen, and yet those actions are so often not taking place. Some primary factors in the high school-to-university transition first relies on the university being informed of the disability. We have already spoken about the need for disclosure to occur as soon as possible (Toutain, 2019), and in many instances, the university will be notified of a student’s disability during the application process. Nonetheless, if the student does not disclose their disability in the application process, studies demonstrate the importance of disclosing it as soon after acceptance as possible so the adjustments process can be made. Universities must act on this information as soon as possible. This means working on adjustments and notifying departments and lecturers as early as possible. There is no point starting to make these arrangements halfway through the first teaching period or a few weeks after classes start (Taylor et al., 2010). When we know that early disclosure, and early adjustment preparation, is likely to make for a more

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positive experience for a disabled student entering higher education (Akin & Huang, 2019), the incentive to ensure these actions are carried out early should be high. In the previous discussion around policies and implementation, it is also necessary to recognise that welcoming disabled students (and staff) in most situations needs to involve the university as a central function of providing disability support services and larger adjustments, and faculties to make smaller adjustments concerning class and work accommodations (Taylor et al., 2010). How to ensure this happens in the least stressful way is also a necessary point to consider. There are at least two parts to this process. The first is providing the medical evidence/explanation of the disability and the fact that doing so may require the resource of time and money to visit medical specialists to gain the information (Tee & Cowen, 2012). The next part is when the disabled person and the university need to work together to determine what the best way forward is in terms of what actions will be most beneficial—as there is a long history of wider actions being taken that do not work for individual disabled people. This may be a time for disabled people to share their experiences with disability support officers. Sharing stories of experiences in educational settings as a way of demonstrating barriers, potential barriers, and what solutions have been found to be a positive way to help disabled people express what they need, and universities to understand what they require (Tee & Cowen, 2012). This method, while time and resource heavy, is not only a good way of ensuring disabled people are provided the support they need, it also steers universities away from the blanket policies and approaches that so often fail. Instead, it highlights the importance of individual needs, but also provides disability support officers and human resource departments with a growing ‘bank’ of different disabilities, and ways removing the subsequent barriers might be approached. Over time, such a system may even lead institutions and faculties to offering support services and adjustments to disabled students and staff that the student or staff member did not know were possible.

Mental Health A recurring circumstance in much of what we have discussed in this chapter is the fact that very few elements of what is happening with disabled students or staff in higher education is coming as a surprise to either the disabled person, or the university. Studies and further exploration of these

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topics helps to understand what is going on, but ultimately disabled people know they are walking into difficult, or potentially difficult situations, when they enter the academy, and the university (by way of support services) knows this is the case and aim to do what they can to help alleviate these issues with the aim being inclusion and equity. It should not then come as a surprise that disabled people are entering higher education with anxiety already building, while at the same time, entering the academy can be a trigger for those people already contending with mental health issues and neurological disabilities. Some studies estimate that for all undergraduates entering higher education, as many as 1 in 3 identify or may be suffering from some form of mental health or wellbeing condition (Kain et al., 2019). Therefore, that disabled people should report increases in mental health conditions as they enter the sector either as staff or as students is sadly expected. The reasons for the increase in mental health issues are widespread. On one hand there are the issues that seem to cause most new students and staff concern such as operating in a new place, learning how new systems work, and meeting new people. For disabled people, they then also must contend with the added pressure of having to find the bathroom, offices, lecture theatres, and for people with sensory or mobility issues, will they be able to access these places easily (or at all)? On top of this, they also know they likely will not fit straight in, will have to disclose their disability, will have to seek support, will have to attend meetings about their disability, may have to gather evidence about their disability, and will likely have to face peoples’ notions of what they are, and are not, capable of doing. Knowing such issues are coming their way, because this is just a part of their life, clearly leads towards increased pressure that disabled people know they will have to face (Jackson, 2006). Universities have been aware of these scenarios in most situations during the twenty-first century. They have known that a part of increasing diversity and inclusion in the classrooms and the corridors is that disabled people would, at least at first, be entering a situation that was going to cause anxiety and stress (Jackson, 2006; Kain et al., 2019). The problem though, and a reason this book and disability research continue is that even though they know these problems exist and steps need to be taken to anticipate and reduce the pressures disabled people and people with mental health and wellbeing issues face as they enter the academy, the complexity in addressing these issues means for most institutions they still have a long way to go in solving the problems.

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There is a realisation by most institutions that yes, disabled students need support and adjustments to be made quickly and with minimal disruption to their learning, or starting in their new position, to ensure an equitable learning or working environment. Nevertheless, as an extension of the above discussion around transition, a realisation that the first step into the academy can be a difficult one and a cause for concern on its own needs to be further addressed to welcome, and likely not dissuade some, disabled people as they enter an environment they know is likely to represent difficulty and discomfort.

Academic Identity As a disabled researcher, I have always found it intriguing that as disability researchers highlight all the issues around disclosure, adjustments, and potential mental health implications—at the same time, there is another avenue of research dedicated to encouraging disabled people in higher education to forge their own path forward. What is perhaps not always clear is that these mixed messages are directed to different people. Research about the difficulties is often written for the sake of university administrators to understand the complexities at hand or for the disabled person looking to learn more about their own or potential experiences. In contrast, the research on disabled people leading their own empowerment and forcing their own success is directed towards a much smaller group of disabled students and academics; primarily those who have already achieved their goals, or who believe they will achieve their goals. This is a particularly interesting circumstance to think about considering what Bourdieu has taught us about social capital, cultural trajectory, and the barriers disabled people are likely to face as they attempt to enter and succeed in the field of academia. However, that is one of the intriguing parts about Bourdieu’s work. He knew the barriers most people would face, and he knew most of the time these barriers would get in the way of the success of most people trying to operate in a field where they did not have the correct habitus to fit, or social capital to succeed. At the same time though, he knew this was the pattern, and may have even been the rule, but he also knew exceptions to the rule existed (Bourdieu, 2007). In Bourdieu’s life he knew this from experience. He, a child from a poor, rural farming community in France, did not have the habitus or cultural trajectory to become one of the most influential sociologists of the

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twentieth century, and yet despite the barriers that stood in his way, that is exactly what he achieved (Bourdieu, 2007). It is exceptions like these (though potentially not to the same extent as becoming a globally renowned and influential sociologist), that drive forward the academic research about academic identities and empowerment. The researchers know this situation will happen in a minority of cases. However, a minority in a growing area of higher education means this group of people are becoming more common. Despite the number of barriers ‘exceptional’ disabled people may face, it is important that they know they are free to barge through the misconceptions and limitations to create their own path, but also pave the way for those behind them (Anctil et al., 2008). The notion of empowerment is also really one about choice. Do high-­ performing disabled students and academics opt to engage in learning and work more than necessary, or do they pull back as much as possible? More recent work suggests that these people may choose to go one way or the other. This is worthy of note because so many studies focus on disabled people withdrawing socially until they are comfortable, or they feel they have proven themselves, before becoming part of the class or workplace. For high-performing individuals (or those who enter the field with confidence due to past study, work, life experiences etc.), disability or not, they tend to have a greater choice. They have already broken down most of the barriers that prevented them from university success and they are most likely welcomed into learning or workplace culture, but their high performance also gives them a choice. Some choose to immediately immerse themselves, others choose to remain an outsider. The key factor here though, is that it is a choice (Mays & Brevetti, 2020). For those who choose to, or feel they can, force themselves into situations and careers, some researchers argued that persistence and influence not only saw their participants position in the university increase, the increase was usually paired with enhanced performance and career progression (Anctil et al., 2008). This may have been because they were high achieving disabled people in terms of study or research, but the point remains that capability and turning capability into results are two different things. Some of the reasons for the success of disabled people willing to fight for themselves include that they are more likely to practice self-­ advocacy with lecturers, support services, and human resource departments, they are more likely to share knowledge about potential solutions,

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and they are likely to have developed conflict resolution skills around fighting for the adjustments they need because their confidence in carrying out these tasks has been developed long-term and not only as they entered the university sphere. While I agree with the notion that disabled people should fight for themselves, should force themselves into conversations, should tell people what they need and not wait to see what they are offered, and should learn to negotiate for their needs (all skills that would provide long-term benefits), my instinct is nonetheless that these ideas are theoretically accurate, but practically very difficult to implement. This chapter, and indeed most of this book, is dedicated to the fact that life-long barriers are put in place that prevent and discourage disabled and marginalised people from completing these types of actions. Many would make the argument that why is it the disabled or marginalised person’s responsibility to fight with and push through the barriers, instead of the barriers being removed by those with the power to do so? Even though some like to specify that this might be an action for the elite, high-performing people as a way of paving a way for others, there is also ample evidence for why people who might otherwise feel comfortable to do these tasks, may choose not to carry them out. Primarily, these factors revolve around the social consequences of always being the instigator, the first to bring things up, the challenger, the campaigner (Obermark, 2019). For disabled people, the reality is that as much as self-advocacy might improve one situation, it will likely also have negative consequences that will present themselves in other scenarios. This research nonetheless does not happen in the abstract. Some disabled people will fight for what they need (even if it is a minority and many choose not to), some still do. We can take nothing away from those that do, they are fixing things for themselves and are likely helping to renovate a system that was never designed to accommodate disabled people. At the same time, it is also important for researchers of marginalised communities to stay abreast of what research and findings are happening in one area of marginalisation as those findings may help improve research in another field. The ideas in this section are no different. For all the issues of telling disabled people to fight for themselves in university settings, the results and repercussions of doing so does provide knowledge that will be valuable to research in some other areas of marginalisation (Mays & Brevetti, 2020), and some factors discussed in this chapter will be repeated as very similar trends exist in the coming chapters.

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COVID and Online Learning A consequence of COVID in many countries was an immediate shift to online learning. It is hard to make any generalisations about how universities reacted to COVID in an international sense because countries made different choices, and even within countries, territories and states, and even different universities located relatively close to each other, approached COVID in different ways. What is clear to researchers though is that in a majority of situations, universities moved online for a period, and most have now pivoted back to face-to-face learning, while others have seen a value in maintaining online learning as a more permanent option. In either instance, researchers and disabled people have now often experienced full-­ time online learning or working. The first point to note, however, is that what we can learn from online learning and working due to COVID comes from the fact it was so widespread. Certainly, ample research already existed that advocated for online learning as a better option for some disabled people in the higher education space (Miller, 2017). What COVID did was take the technical advantages some disabled people experience, and applied them to everyone (Rodrigo & Tabuenca, 2020). Pre-COVID, disabled people talked about having to worry about issues around transportation, accessibility on campus, and complexities around sensory issues in class or in meetings. They also spoke about the fact that while many suggest there was an option for online learning/working before, that activity which they concede was designed to help them, often only ostracised them more because they would be the only person in the class or the only person in the meeting on Zoom, and pre-COVID, Zoom was often not regularly used, many people avoided it, and disabled people report being the only person on Zoom essentially being a point of contention within the room. Once online learning and working began due to COVID, however, everyone was in this same category and disabled people so often immediately felt what truer equity could feel like because everyone was on Zoom, everyone faced the same technical issues, and disabled people had the advantage of being at home using the accessibility features of their computers that they needed to work more seamlessly or fit into the class (Kotera et al., 2021). For all the advantages online learning and working offer, there are nonetheless two facts that must be kept in mind. Firstly, at the time of writing this chapter many governments (and subsequently universities) are in a phase of living and dealing with COVID. Some universities are not offering online learning and working as a more permanent option, and others

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are returning face-to-face as quickly as possible. For those disabled people who wanted to remain learning and working at home, some report losing the integration they felt by being one of many who were carrying out their study or work from home to again being the only one. Of course, for those whose institutions are now more flexible, they report being quite enthusiastic of having the option of going to campus where circumstances permit, and remaining at home with online learning when this better suits their learning or working. This nonetheless brings me to the second point, many universities and disability support offices have realised and acknowledge that a more permanent learning and working from home scenario may suit many people. However, this needs to be a choice. Telling disabled students and staff to work from home is not equity, encouraging disabled people to learn and work from home because that is easier than organising timetables built around accessible locations is not equity. Working and learning from home is not a cure-all for so many of the issues disabled people have historically raised, and it is certainly not a solution in a university where faceto-face contact is the preferred method which relegates the disabled person to again being the only person on Zoom (Kotera et al., 2021). Working and learning from home may be a method some disabled people prefer moving forward, but it cannot be the only method and disabled people still need the choice. As much as some people may prefer working and learning from home, for others, this may be the worst circumstance possible due to the isolation, the technical limitations, or their home environment not being suitable for study or work. To reiterate my point from the previous paragraph, online learning and working is not a cure-all, it is simply one method that may work for some people, some of the time. It is one answer to existing problems, it is not the only answer.

Summary The previous chapter of this book dealt with the history of the university and the history of inclusion for people from marginalised groups and backgrounds. Throughout that chapter researchers from four and five decades ago highlighted that removing the barriers preventing marginalised people from entering higher education was a brilliant step forward, but as Bourdieu (1977) knew, letting people onto the field of higher education was only the first step. Letting people into academia and then providing no other support despite the fact that an inordinate number of barriers were still in place that prevented true inclusion, diversity, and

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equity was a major issue that researchers called to be addressed by research and university policy changes. Jump forward to the last few years, and researchers continue to call for the exact same changes. Disabled people know they are walking into a situation that will contain barriers, and the barriers will impact on their abilities to excel (Moola, 2015). Time and time again we see the same obstacles appearing in research focused on different barriers all over the world. Disabled people need to know what services exist, too many systems are still in place that rely on the disabled student or staff member approaching academic support and informing them of what they need with little information about how to do this or what is possible (Anderson et al., 2019). Yet we do know that when disabled students and staff engage with these services early and are able to start successful dialogues with support staff with experience and knowledge of disabled peoples’ needs, the disabled student or staff member has a much higher chance of success (Dong & Lucas, 2016). As easy as it is to suggest that these steps would help remove or lower so many barriers, and there are clear examples of these systems working within the above-mentioned studies, they are still the minority and often overlook the other barriers disabled people face. The problems begin with disclosure. So many disabled people report negative experiences with disclosing their disability throughout their life that many opt to avoid disclosure until absolutely necessary, if it all for some with intermittently apparent disabilities (Anderson et al., 2018). Delaying disclosure predictably has negative consequences with support being set up and provided in a timely manner. The issues at hand nonetheless continue deeper as even for students and staff who do disclose their disability early, issues within the university arise. These include disabled people needing proof of their disability, the university not understanding what supports they would benefit from, the negative experience that so often comes from faculty and student perceptions of disability, and the unwillingness to spend the time, effort, or expense on providing services that would support disabled people (Hong, 2015). As unfortunate as it is that so many negative experiences still exist in higher education for disabled people, we can be positive. Many studies report successes on faculty-wide or university-wide initiatives for some disabled people so we know much better methods of support and removing barriers for disabled people exist, they are just in the minority. I would suggest that is where disability research (and frankly most research into marginalised academics and students as we will see in the coming chapters)

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needs to be directed. Researchers must seek out the successful examples, dissect them, document them, and consider how they can be scaled up. I might sound too optimistic (and I say this as someone who has had horrific experiences with disclosure and university attitudes towards disability), but I must believe that in many instances it is not that universities and faculties are unwilling to adopt better practices to aid in the success of their disabled students and staff, they simply do not know what services and supports to provide. Overcoming the barriers created by disabled peoples’ own negative experiences is, I concede, a much tougher problem and one that will likely be long-term in its solutions. At this point I think the sector needs to concede that damage has been done, and it will take universities providing adequate support long-term for disabled people to believe that disclosure is okay, and the university will support them. This may sound like a simple solution, but it is a solution that requires two very long-term objectives to be achieved.

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Hendrix, K. (1998). Student perceptions of the influence of race on professor credibility. Journal of Black Studies, 28, 738–764. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 002193479802800604 Hong, B. (2015). Qualitative analysis of the barriers college students with disabilities experience in higher education. Journal of College Student Development, 56(3), 209–226. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2015.0032 Jackson, S. (2006). Telling others, telling myself: Supporting students with mental health issues in higher education in the UK. JANZSSA, 27, 32–43. Kain, S., Chin-Newman, C., & Smith, S. (2019). “It’s all in your head:” Students with psychiatric disability navigating the university environment. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, 32(4), 411–425. Kašperová, E. (2021). Impairment (in)visibility and stigma: How disabled entrepreneurs gain legitimacy in mainstream and disability markets. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 33(9–10), 894–919. https://doi.org/10.108 0/08985626.2021.1974101 Kimball, E., & Thoma, H. (2019). College experiences for students with disabilities: An ecological synthesis of recent literature. Journal of College Student Development, 60(6), 674–693. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2019.0062 Kioko, V., & Makoelle, T. (2014). Inclusion in higher education: Learning experiences of disabled students at Winchester University. International Education Studies, 7(6), 106–116. https://doi.org/10.5539/ies.v7n6p106 Kotera, Y., Chircop, J., Hutchinson, L., Rhodes, C., Green, P., Jones, R., & Garip, G. (2021). Loneliness in online students with disabilities: Qualitative investigation for experience, understanding and solutions. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 18(1), 1–16. https://doi. org/10.1186/s41239-­021-­00301-­x Mays, B., & Brevetti, M. (2020). Lessons on ways to develop self-empowerment: A phenomenological study of the lived experiences of higher education learners with physical disabilities. Journal for Multicultural Education, 14(1), 61–84. https://doi.org/10.1108/jme-­06-­2019-­0047 Meekosha, H., Jakubowicz, A., & Rice, E. (1991). “As Long as You Are Willing to Wait”: Access and equity in universities for students with disabilities. Higher Education Research & Development, 10(1), 19–39. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 0729436910100103 Melero, N., Moriña, A., & López-Aguilar, R. (2018). Life-lines of Spanish students with disabilities during their university trajectory. Qualitative Report, 23(5). https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-­3715/2018.3092 Miller, R. (2017). “My voice is definitely strongest in online communities”: Students using social media for queer and disability identity-making. Journal of College Student Development, 58(4), 509–525. https://doi.org/10.1353/ csd.2017.0040

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Moola, F. (2015). The road to the ivory tower: The learning experiences of students with disabilities at the University of Manitoba. Qualitative Research in Education, 4(1), 45–70. https://doi.org/10.4471/qre.2015.56 Obermark, L. (2019). Making space for the misfit: Disability and access in graduate education in English. College English, 82(2), 173–203. Price, M. (2015). The bodymind problem and the possibilities of pain. Hypatia, 30(1), 268–284. https://doi.org/10.1111/hypa.12127 Pumfrey, P. (2010). Towards a more inclusive higher education system in the UK (1998/99 to 2007/08): Students with and without disabilities. Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, 2(2), 64–76. https://doi. org/10.1108/17581184201000014 Rodrigo, C., & Tabuenca, B. (2020). Learning ecologies in online students with disabilities. Comunicar. Media Education Research Journal, 28(1). https://doi. org/10.3916/c62-­2020-­05 Rowan, L. (2019). Higher education and social justice. Palgrave Macmillan. Rubin, D. (1998). Help! My professor (or doctor or boss) doesn’t talk English. In J.  Martin, T.  Nakayama, & L.  Flores (Eds.), Readings in cultural contexts (pp. 149–159). Mayfield. Ryan, J. (2007). Learning disabilities in Australian universities: Hidden, ignored, and unwelcome. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 40(5), 436–442. https:// doi.org/10.1177/00222194070400050701 Ryan, J. (2011). Access and participation in higher education of students with disabilities: Access to what? The Australian Educational Researcher, 38(1), 73–93. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-­010-­0002-­8 Spier, J., & Natalier, K. (2021). Reasonable adjustments? Disabled research higher degree students’ strategies for managing their candidature in an Australian university. Disability & Society, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/0968759 9.2021.1997718 Taylor, M., Baskett, M., & Wren, C. (2010). Managing the transition to university for disabled students. Education + Training, 52(2), 165–175. https://doi. org/10.1108/00400911011027743 Tee, S., & Cowen, M. (2012). Supporting students with disabilities—Promoting understanding amongst mentors in practice. Nurse Education in Practice, 12(1), 6–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2011.03.020 Timmerman, L., & Mulvihill, T. (2015). Accommodations in the college setting: The perspectives of students living with disabilities. Qualitative Report, 20(10). https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-­3715/2015.2334 Toutain, C. (2019). Barriers to accommodations for students with disabilities in higher education: A literature review. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, 32(3), 297–310.

CHAPTER 6

Women in Higher Education

The original intent of this chapter was to discuss the impact of gender in higher education as a student or staff member. After much consideration, this focus was altered to focus on women (rather than genders that are not men) as we aim to provide a comparative analysis between the privilege that comes with being a man in higher education and highlighting this point in the confined space of a chapter is perhaps more convincingly demonstrated via a comparative assessment of men and women. We also made this choice because there is enough research out there about marginalised people in higher education that points to the fact that the more someone is marginalised by the barriers separating them from what is considered (and we reluctantly use the word) ‘mainstream’, the more obstacles they face (Heffernan, 2022a, 2022b). Therefore, though this chapter focuses on women in higher education, and we can make judgements based on decades of intense research about the experiences and barriers women encounter, we do this knowing that for all the barriers women face, in most other circumstances people from other genders will face even more barriers and prejudice as they attempt to operate within the higher education sector. With that clarification established, it is also necessary to situate where this chapter begins the discussion around women in higher education. With Kate Smithers. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 T. Heffernan, The Marginalised Majority in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41432-9_6

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This book is about the marginalised majority in higher education, and the fact that combined, people from different marginalised backgrounds now comprise a majority number in many university settings. Of those people who make up the marginalised majority though, women now often comprise the largest number of student and staff populations (Feniger et al., 2021), and in many settings, women alone represent the majority of many classrooms, faculties, and universities. However, as we shall see, being part of the majority does not mean the barriers that have historically been placed in front of a group have been removed. To reiterate some points from the opening chapters, Bourdieu always clearly highlighted that marginalised did not mean minority, marginalised meant those outside of the circle of power and in higher education, the circle of power is privileged middle-class white men (Bourdieu, 1977). In writing this chapter, great thanks must go to Kate Smithers. Her insights and expertise in higher education, and in particular the factors that can see one group of people receive the invisible advantages of social and cultural capital, have been invaluable in outlining and understanding the nuances of why majority groups can receive minimal influence.

Women Students As a starting point, discussing women students in higher education is somewhat like discussing other marginalised groups in the sector in that the marginalised group is dealing with their own perceptions, society’s perceptions inside and outside the classroom, and what researchers know about their group. This is a key point to make at the start of this chapter, and a consideration whenever thinking about marginalised groups, because these three perspectives and areas of knowledge rarely meet; they are often at odds with each other. The marginalised person’s perceptions and society’s perceptions may be the same, but they are more likely different, and despite what researchers may know, how well their findings are transferred into publicly accessible knowledge, let alone causing changes in wider-­ perceptions, policy, or practice, is related to how much their findings may influence situations. At a base level, we know that women now make up a majority of university students across the sector in many countries. There are many reasons for this turn in the twenty-first century, but it is important to recognise that while this is good for women and good for equity, it is also partly because women will have fewer job options than men if they do not attend

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university, and usually those jobs are also more precarious in terms of job security, and lower in salary. The clearest example of this trend to an international audience is that trades are a common career path for men and women who do not elect to go to university, but it is the trades most likely chosen by men which lead to stronger and safer employment options, and higher salaries. Thus, for women seeking safe employment, university study becomes a more likely option if someone has the privilege to make that choice (Simon & Clarke, 2016). Once in the classroom, however, there is a noted discrepancy in the gender gaps of some disciplinary areas over others with education, health, the humanities, and arts, which are often dominated by women, to areas around the sciences, engineering, and business which are more likely to have higher ratios of men. What this means in practice begins with research indicating that classes with higher rates of women tend to have more on-­ time assessment submission and successful subject completions. Feniger et al. (2021) highlight this as a reason in itself to advocate for more equal student ratios as more women in the male-dominated subjects will lead women to wider career options and in higher salary occupations usually associated with science, business, and engineering. By doing so, the women students have the potential of outperforming their male colleagues who have become accustomed to the expectations of a male-dominated classroom. Discussions around gender balance are also interesting because while for decades researchers have examined the impact of women being the minority, slowly becoming the majority overall, and subsequently researching what impact this has from one disciplinary area to another—it is necessary to note that white, middle-class, straight, able-bodied male attitudes rarely change. Universities have for centuries been the domain of these men. It was created by them, for them, and the university’s function was to serve them and the next generations of people like them. Bourdieu recognised this; he knew the habitus of a successful university student and the cultural trajectory of someone likely to succeed in their studies was closely related to these attributes; someone from this background would face few barriers to academic success (Bourdieu, 1988). There is, or at least was, some speculation as to how changing gender ratios might impact men such as in the extreme cases where men had gone from significant majority to significant minority in some areas in only a short period of time. The answer, and this will not surprise many of you, is that white middle-class men, even when they make up the minority of a

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classroom and are outperformed by their women counterparts, still do not view themselves as a minority (Woodfield, 2019). Reasons for this include that despite being the minority and likely being outperformed by the women students in the class, middle-class white men still face no barriers in entering the class, and know that regardless of being outperformed, their graduate outcomes and employability will still be high (Woodfield, 2019). This is the true absurdity of higher education in the twenty-first century and why universities and researchers must dedicate time and resources to creating properly inclusive environments for women and marginalised groups. That women students, who make up the majority of a class and will perform higher than their male peers, are the ones to face barriers in entering the class, and are then at a disadvantage due to the centuries of male-dominance in the higher education sector, demonstrates that we still have a long way to go in creating inclusive and diverse environments. It is also crucial to note that this does not go unrecognised by the students themselves. Women students are aware that university study should be about equality and success should be based on efforts, and that the factor deciding in coming into the classroom will be secondary school performance (for undergraduate students) or undergraduate performance (for postgraduate students). Yet at the same time, women students still know that the structures in place see masculine attributes elevated and rewarded, and this only amplifies in disciplinary areas that have been male-­ dominated (Francis et al., 2014). This student realisation also comes at a time when university, particularly for undergraduate students, should be a time of personal growth. Young people are supposed to be working out who they are, what they are about, and what they believe in, but for young women, this time of discovery is inevitably stifled by existing in a learning environment that is structured towards the benefit of men, and rewarding male attributes (Ropers-Huilman et al., 2016). These are issues that lecturers and tutors can be aware of as they lead and teach classes, but ultimately it is only the sector, and university administrators who can make changes to try and alter the engrained, structural prejudice women students continue to face in the sector. We have briefly talked about the perceptions of women, of women compared to men, women’s perceptions of themselves, and what researchers have determined is happening and what the short- and long-term consequences might be of these scenarios. However, just to reiterate how aware universities are of what is going on, and subsequently just how

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much they are unconcerned by these perceptions and would rather not contend with them (we might suggest because they have not been forced to address them), we need look no further than business and marketing research. More than a decade ago universities had made the connection between student recruitment and retention, and gender (Bowden & Wood, 2011). Therefore, as universities knew they had to keep student satisfaction high for the sake of the financial benefits of increasing student enrolments, and not losing students once enrolled to neighbouring or competing institutions (Heffernan & Bosetti, 2020a, 2020b, 2021), they realised they had to appeal to different gendered-students in different ways and because money is at stake. As this was a case of money, rather than student equity, universities have subsequently created marketing campaigns and on-campus environments to appeal to the primary (some might say stereotypical) attributes that each gender is said to value in an effort to create long-term and profitable relationships (Bowden & Wood, 2011). It may be cynical, but it is nonetheless worthy to note that when financial gain was at risk, methods have been put in place to address gender in the classroom. Yet at the same time, universities so often appear happy to avoid addressing other issues relating to women in the classroom despite the research attention they receive, and warnings researchers highlight to the sector.

Family and University Students Books, journal articles, book chapters, conference presentations, and indeed conferences themselves have for decades been created to investigate the differences gender (in terms of men vs women) make in the classroom, and the same is true of how relationships and family’s impact of students’ capabilities, performance, and outcomes. For students in long-term relationships, or for those who are partnered with children, researchers point to clear differences in how men and women are affected. On one hand, these findings reflect the wider attitudes to gender and domestic obligations. We know that women are more likely to have a larger role in the home and more responsibilities around childcare—these obligations tend not to diminish if a woman enrols in higher education. Even at face value, the consequences of these actions are clear in terms of male students having more time available to dedicate to class and their studies while women are expected to provide care to their family first, and then dedicate whatever time is left to their studies (Brooks,

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2015; Forret & Dougherty, 2004). However, this is not new information, and it is for that reason researchers have more recently called for universities to take some responsibility in their curriculum development and delivery. They argue that when a limited capacity to engage is present, or the ability to engage after many other obligations have been met, and the consequences of these circumstances are negative to grades and course outcomes, why not alter curricula where possible to enable self-guided learning so that learning can at least take place at times more suited to the individual (Andrew et al., 2020)? This would also be the perfect time for universities to consider that class scheduling makes a significant difference to peoples’ ability to engage. For example, for women with household or family obligations, early morning or late-afternoon and evening classes are far more likely to be difficult to attend regularly, stay throughout the class, and remain engaged, than classes scheduled during the middle of the day (Andrew et al., 2020). From a Bourdieusian perspective, what we see happening here is clear. To begin with, we are talking about a sector that favours privileged middle-­ class, able-bodied, white men. Even when we know this, even when we know the problems this causes, the problem is then exacerbated by family and wider social and cultural structures placing men in a stronger position to succeed in higher education before they have even set foot inside a university. The social trajectory of men, and the capital that gets them there, is so often tied to them being the ones who will leave the house for opportunities and advantage, and it is expected that their partner and children will mould themselves to the needs of the man (Holland-Smith, 2021). So it is with these advantages already in place, that men then enter the classroom which more often than not will then reward them for their masculine approaches to learning and ability to prioritise their studies above most other aspects in their life. We must remember that for all the societal constructs and structures within higher education that favour men over women where family, childcare, and household duties are concerned, there may be some expectations that a woman student, even with a partner and children, will receive some support from home. A woman single parent is much more likely to be placed in a more complex decision. Being a sole parent quite predictably has a significant impact on someone’s ability to participate in, and engage in, and subsequently succeed in, learning. We know that sole-parenting most often falls to the duties of women because of the gendered construct of caring for children (Hook, 2015), and this means less time to dedicate

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to studies. For a single parent, ultimately this means trying to learn while also experiencing intensified levels of childcare as they are single parents and there are likely limited ways to access other forms of childcare. At the same time, division of household labour will likely be limited as there is no partner to share the load, and similarly, in a single parent household, the financial pressure (both in terms of the need to work for an income and the potential complexity of making one income work for a household while also undertaking university study) is going to be difficult (Hook, 2015). It may be worthy to note here that not all single parent families are led by a woman, and while that is true, a majority of single parent families are led by women and thus the issue of single parent learning is one that mostly affects women students. However, if someone does want to pursue the idea of men vs women single parent families and their impact on higher education—the impact on university study for a woman single parent and a male single parent is different. If we think about life in the home, a male single parent is more likely to have more secure and higher paying work, because that is how most Western societies operate, and thus that financial pressure is reduced. Secondly, though not the end of the discussion, we have to remember that when the male single parent enters the classroom, they are still entering a field that has primarily been designed with their advantage in mind (Holland-Smith, 2021).

Stereotypes and Gender Roles of Women Students For women who enrol in courses that are traditionally male-dominated such as engineering, maths, or some areas of science (among many others), they also face the consequences not only of being a woman in higher education, but being a woman where stereotypes and assumptions will potentially be even more damaging to their learning. More than a decade ago researchers had identified that women were entering these classrooms and altering their personalities and characteristics not to match the masculine majority of the class, but to lessen their feminine qualities that did not fit with the student population (Barnard et al., 2012). More recent studies have examined this topic further by analysing what the learning environment will be like that they are entering as a woman student, and how it will impact on their learning. Perhaps crucially, it is relevant to note that most women are abundantly aware of the fact that they will be entering a male-dominated, masculine-driven classroom that

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will do little to alter its existence to make women students feel welcome or accommodated. Many women see this is a challenge, and they are happy to enter the classroom as a form of resistance and pave the way for more women students to follow in their path (Myklebust, 2019). To an outsider looking in at this information it may somewhat come as a surprise that women are so cognisant of what is happening and the challenges they face, but it becomes clearer when we think about university as a continuation, rather than a first step, into learning. For undergraduate women students, they have already experienced the male-dominated nature of their subjects during their schooling years, or at the very least, seen that some subjects are not ‘traditional’ women’s subjects in single-sex schools. Similarly, for women in postgraduate coursework or research environments, their undergraduate years have in most cases already prepared them for learning in a male-dominated learning space, and subsequently demonstrated to them the issues they will face (Stentiford, 2019). Research into these areas also builds on older research and often augments earlier findings or ideas—sometimes due to more research being conducted, other times perhaps because albeit slow, some improvements are happening for women in subjects that have traditionally been filled by a male majority. As an example of a research augmentation, researchers now know that women are more likely to outperform their male counterparts (Woodfield, 2019), but this does not change male attitudes in the classroom. At the same time, what is proving more difficult to remove are questions based on gender roles. Thus, though most women students feel their intelligence or work is not in question, they feel their capacity to perform is still in question. This leads to issues around completing their studies if they have a partner or children, or what their studies mean for their short- and long-term career goals because, due to gender roles, it is expected that the impact will be negative (Myklebust, 2019). As noted above, these issues can and do make a difference to how people are perceived in the class, and it is these perceptions around the gender roles of women that can cause issues depending on how toxic the masculine traits are of their male-filled classrooms (Stentiford, 2019). In amongst these issues, how stereotypes and gender roles can impact on the perceptions of women students is also the separate consideration of how women see themselves in the classroom when it comes to assessment. As stated above, we know that most often women enter the classroom knowing it will throw up certain challenges depending on the disciplinary area, gender composition, traditional gender area of the subject, and who

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is administering the subject. However, an area like self-assessment provides another avenue for discussion relating to gender in the classroom. Existing literature suggests that, on average, there are differences between men and women students in relation to self-image and self-­ confidence in the university classroom (Torres-Guijarro & Bengoechea, 2017). To a Bourdieusian scholar interested in higher education, this finding will not come as a surprise. As we see time and time again in discussion around higher education and privilege, so much of the university experience is directed towards a certain type of man, and everyone else is left fighting the closed barriers they face and overcoming the hurdles of not being this certain type of man in order to succeed (Bourdieu, 1988). It makes sense then that women (and most people from many marginalised backgrounds) feel at odds with the system and at a disadvantage compared to their privileged white male student colleagues. Yet when it comes to self-assessment in the classroom, we also know that women students are likely to be more critical of themselves, and judge themselves more harshly than male students will (Torres-Guijarro & Bengoechea, 2017). When we know that women students are likely to lead the class in terms of academic performance (Woodfield, 2019), and that the inability of the university to change in a way to make women and marginalised groups feel more welcome in the twenty-first century to a point where their feelings of being an outsider leads them to be more critical of themselves than their male counterparts, then the sector has a problem. This explanation is extremely simplified and summarises hundreds of research projects into only a small sentence. However, when stereotypes and gender roles are still playing a significant role in the classroom, it cannot be ignored that this can make a difference to feelings of fitting in, self-esteem, and self-­ confidence—and this matters in personal growth and course outcomes depending on the types of assessment being used. The previous sections of this chapter have explored what the university classroom looks like for women students. We know they are operating in an environment originally designed for men, and in most instances, this remains the case. Societal structures around providing care and family responsibilities are primarily still left to women which means even in scenarios where women are in women-dominated courses, they are still potentially at a disadvantage to male colleagues as they are destined to also have queries raised about their ability to dedicate themselves to their studies and later careers. In male-dominated courses, we know that these same issues occur as women students are then also left to contend with

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masculine traits that are inevitably rewarded in subjects that are male-dominated. These factors have been known for decades, and though modern research indicates how some aspects are changing or have slightly augmented as universities have become more aware of how gender impacts on students, a lot remains the same. Bourdieu would point to the power relationships involved as a way of understanding what is taking place. Universities are places of power and privilege related to middle- and upper-class white men, with no major efforts for structural change, women (and other marginalised groups) enter this field at a disadvantage before they even enter the campus gates. This therefore raises questions about what happens if women work towards, and find themselves in, a position of power. What happens if women enter the field of higher education as an academic with social capital and cultural trajectory justifying their place in this male-dominated environment?

Women in Academia To spare any thoughts of optimism, the answer is that some barriers are removed, many remain, some simply change shape, and many new barriers are created as we change from examining a learning environment to a work environment. We must nonetheless consider these changes because on one hand they show a new set of challenges that the sector must address, and on the other, they highlight the long-term issues for women in a field that claims to have changed a lot over the last 1000 years, but in many ways, it has not changed that much at all. Few of these general findings will be of surprise to many readers, though the details may shed some light on the specifics of what is taking place. As with women students, we already know that a broad collection of factors impact on how women work within the higher education space, the challenges they face to enter, to exist, and to succeed. In a general sense, researchers have suggested that women face several major obstacles in working in the higher education sector (Moosa & Coetzee, 2020). They begin with the barriers that have always existed to enter the field—that being the need to overcome the barriers put in place by trying to enter an educational institution designed for the progression of men. Women’s capability to perform equally may be less in question than it used to be and is statistically wrong, but remnants of their thinking may still exist by some people in some disciplinary areas. Acceptance into higher education is a

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factor largely determined by disciplinary area and often the gatekeepers within a university or faculty. However, the fact that acceptance is even something that must be considered for women but rarely (if ever) is a concern of men in the sector demonstrates the point. Work/life balance also remains a difficult issue for the institution with which to contend. While most people are beyond questions of ability and performance, that society still expects women to lead family and household duties inevitably has the potential to raise questions over someone’s dedication to their job. We must also recognise that the earlier points also impact on potential advancement and success beliefs. As we will talk about in the coming sections of this chapter, women (and marginalised groups in general) can face a more difficult time in career advancement because often they are tasked with duties around teaching and administration which are not always connected to promotion. Without promotion, we can see delayed career progression for women in the sector which subsequently impacts on their academic growth, and the chances they have of achieving success in the same way their male counterparts might (Moosa & Coetzee, 2020), and not to mention the financial implications of delayed higher salaries, savings, and pension growth. As these factors are forever changing in how they are perceived and what this means for women in higher education, some of the major factors are worth discussing. For example, higher education remains a career where success is so often defined by research productivity. The ability to conduct research activities, and convert this into a national or international research profile through publications, grant success, keynote addresses, consultancies, and even mainstream media attention, is the fastest way to accelerate a career rather than through teaching excellence or administrative competencies (Heffernan et al., 2022). There is, however, a noted gap in research productivity between men and women. So often researchers and even Bourdieu (Aiston & Jung, 2015; Bourdieu, 1988; Harris et al., 2022) have highlighted that this gap is so often attributed to family responsibilities and interruptions in research careers slowing the outputs of women and causing differences in men’s and women’s research profiles. Practically, these arguments have largely revolved around the availability of time. They have noted how from even the earliest days of postgraduate coursework and research, it is the ability to gift time to project leaders and being endlessly flexible with work expectations that gets most research careers moving quickly. It is also often men (middle-class men at that) who

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have the financial capacity and lack of other responsibilities (or responsibilities they avoid due to their partner) to pursue these opportunities that lead to a research career. However, some researchers point to this oversimplifying what is going on as it creates a reason that excuses all differences in outputs when in fact relying on family and household duties to justify the differences is drawing attention away from structural and systemic issues around gender and sexism that are continuing to plague the profession (Aiston & Jung, 2015). This belief then leads to questions of how are women supported in higher education? We know that universities are active in their attempt to provide support for career development to early, mid, and late-career academics, but the quality, or usefulness, of the support is a question that must be asked. For all the support that is being provided, to maintain peoples’ position in the academy, and to further enhance them, they need support tailored to their situation. Though these considerations are usually broken down into categories around career stage, employment type (casual, contract, tenure, etc.), or whether they are focused more on teaching or research, it is also clear to researchers that gender must play a role. Due to the different barriers men and women face in establishing and progressing careers, studies suggest that men and women can benefit from different support systems to remove or overcome the obstacles they face in their careers. Furthermore, we have already established in this chapter (and this book), that while women and marginalised groups face obstacles within the university, they also face societal challenges that can then impact on their work or how they are perceived in the workplace. In these situations, career support and career development can also have the impact of assisting in overcoming obstacles in the workplace that are caused by barriers placed by society outside of the institution (Loots & Walker, 2015). For all the time spent, studies, and research that has been conducted into women in academia, and more significantly, the confidence with which universities will declare to be dedicated to gender equity and working towards more inclusive environments, significant gaps are still to be crossed. We need to see movement that leads to the innumerable barriers placed in front of women be removed and not simply avoided or temporarily moved. Particularly in relation to how universities will sell themselves and describe their own situations around gender equity, researchers point to the cruel optimism of suggesting that inroads have been made and situations have been improved (Lipton, 2017). The marketing, campaigning, and public commitment to women points towards what has

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been achieved and what might be desired, but it also significantly downplays the struggles that women continue to face in higher education. This cruel optimism is also not limited to women in academia, we see traces of it throughout the involvement of marginalised people in higher education. Universities will make public declarations, and they will even spend money to provide support systems and services, but they make this choice instead of making genuine attempts to change the systemic issues that make life harder for marginalised groups. We thus once again see barriers artificially removed or temporarily overcome due to financial input, and not because of any major structural changes.

Women Academics and Family To pair with the above discussion around women and support, it is also necessary to examine what happens with career expectations. Entering postgraduate study or enrolling in a doctoral degree is so often connected to aspirations of becoming an academic, but of course, statistically, a majority of postgraduate students and those with doctoral degrees will never become academics because that was not the reason they enrolled in the degree. Instead, they were enrolling to enhance their knowledge for the purpose of their own field away from academia. However, how is this choice made? If someone enters postgraduate coursework or research with the intent of never becoming an academic, that is fine, but we know that for a portion of women their decision to not pursue a career in academia is because of their gender and what that means in an academic environment. One of the most common reasons women choose not to pursue academia as a career is its incompatibility with family life and children. For all the support and assurances from faculties and universities, by the time someone reaches postgraduate work, they have a sense of the workload and working conditions. For many, the timing of university study and relationships and childbirth mean that it is as someone is completing their degrees and would otherwise be beginning their academic career that the major life events of birth and raising children take place. Anyone associated with academia knows the workload and significance to career prospects in the early career years, and subsequently they will have a sense of the difficulties family obligations and a career in academia can face (Crabb & Ekberg, 2014). Yet what is worthy of note about this situation is that it is not about whether or not to have a professional career, it is about the specific choice as to whether they will pursue an academic career or not.

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For many women that answer is ‘no’ because of higher education’s structure and inability to adequately cater to needs outside of the pressurised and competitive environment. The compatibility with an academic career can also begin in the home as first-in-family students, first-generation academics, and academics whose partners have no experience in academia are regularly reported to speak of issues around gender and gender roles. The primary issues tend to be around a lack of understanding of the pressures women face in higher education. Class schedules may not be predictable, research projects and lab tasks may be grouped into intensive periods of time, marking can occur in blocks of time which make it difficult to find free time for other tasks; these are just some of the elements that can cause family friction for women whose families are not familiar with how universities operate. At the same time, it has also been argued that time in universities can often lead women to increased understandings of gender roles and the development of more liberal views around gender roles in a relationship, family, and society (Andrew et al., 2021). The result is often that women are more likely to experience less practical and emotional support in their work than men. Considering the increased pressure women also face due to relationship and family obligations, that they are also noted as doing this with less support has predictable consequences on their work and ability to work at the same level as their male counterparts who are more likely to receive support to conduct their work, and likely did not face the same relationship and family challenges in the first place. These findings do continue the need for first-in-­ family and first-in-relationship initiatives, but researchers making these suggestions are also doing so with the understanding that though we know these types of initiatives may help, they are also likely very difficult to operate. As Andrew et al. (2021) found, even getting the partners of women to take part in initial studies is difficult as reluctance and opposition were strong. Bourdieu spoke about the difficulty of someone breaking away from their cultural trajectory, and building social capital that was not the capital those they were familiar with possessed. Bourdieu did not speak of this in terms of relationships, but he did talk about it in relation to his own experiences. He left his farming community and became a globally significant academic, and though he did not forget his roots, returning to his community was difficult because he was not returning to the same community—just as he had moved on, so too had the community changed while

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he was away (Webb et  al., 2002). This predictably made connections harder to maintain; to the person leaving, they are not returning to the same place, everyone is on a constantly moving trajectory. The same elements to this can be seen in people trying to enter higher education when that is not a field with which their family and partners are familiar. We see people and groups who were on the same cultural trajectory, or at least similar paths, which meant facing challenges and hurdles that each were familiar with and knew were potential issues. When one person decides to step outside of that field, however, they are beginning to face barriers and obstacles that do not match what those around them have traditionally experienced.

Women and Career Progression Having discussed the barriers women face in higher education careers from an academic standpoint and issues related to societal and home and relationship pressures, we can turn our attention to what happens to women as they try to progress their careers through academia. As was made clear in the earlier chapter around the history of marginalisation in higher education, examining women’s position in academia takes place in front of a backdrop of a rapidly changing sector. Primarily, the corporatisation of higher education has been extreme in the last decade, and the COVID pandemic only hastened those processes. We had already seen a shift to cost-cutting methods that saw activities that led to income (like teaching) be increased, and approaches to activities that ‘may’ lead to funding (such as research) tend to only be given to certain people. Essentially, we saw the opportunities of an academic career shift. Proven researchers with grant success are given research time, those who do not are given extra teaching duties because the corporate university system does not allow for opportunity or research potential to be explored as it once did (Heffernan, 2020). For women academics, this sees a significant shift in university tasks and how they are divided between male and women staff. Increasingly we see teaching assigned to women while men are more likely to gain research-­ focused careers (Angervall, 2018). Bourdieu would tell us that the reasons for this begin at the very inception of university study as men enter a field made for them where they are instantly more comfortable, and depending on disciplinary area, are likely to be led by male academics where instant connections will be made (Bourdieu, 1988). As we have already covered

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in this book, as women students reach postgraduate study, this is a time when family commitments are more likely to put them at a disadvantage; the options to gift time to the university to be invited onto research projects and build relationships with researchers may be decreased. Of course, these things may or may not happen, but we know that they are more likely to impact on women, and even if the impact is only incremental, we still see—from the day women walk into a university classroom to them carrying out their academic careers—men rarely being impacted by these incremental setbacks and eventually the result is that we see more men in research roles than women (Angervall, 2018). Even as teachers, we also know that women and men face different challenges which leads to the time it takes to be a teacher and to lead a class which will be different for men and women—regardless of what time the university provides. We know that men are judged and thought to be professional by their students (both men and women). A man can walk into a classroom, deliver a lecture, and leave, and respond to emails and questions in a moderately timely manner and the student perception is that as an important professional academic, that is the best he can do. However, women are expected to be carers. They are expected to listen, be understanding, be available, answer questions quickly, and be there to help their students during troublesome periods (Boring et al., 2016; Fan et al., 2019; Heffernan, 2022c, 2023; Heffernan & Harpur, 2023). The structural reasons that are likely to lead women to teaching career paths, and the extra work they must undertake to be seen as ‘good’ teachers, creates a risk for women in higher education of getting trapped in a teaching career rather than a teaching and research, or research career. This is not to question the value of good teaching or career path some may choose, but it is to highlight that it should be a choice, and your gender (or any reason someone may be marginalised) should not play a role in what choices someone has available to them. As we are discussing teaching as a career path though, it is worth noting that some studies have examined the notion that a teaching career path may be a preferred option for some. The often-cited reasons are ones around a more predictable workload as your teaching is set. A less stressful job because the pressures around academic publishing and grant or funding income are less or zero due to a teach-only position. A plan for a career path that is based around teaching and administration so that career progression to higher levels and the professoriate are not blocked by the research inactivity of a teach-only position (Berheide et al., 2020). That

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we have seen, these are the reasons that are most often advertised in recruitment for teach-only positions, or opportunities to convert to teach-­ only staff for those already employed. Certainly, the primary reasons always revolve around a better work-life balance, and less stress due to not having the pressure of publishing and grants be part of your career performance reviews and evaluations. This is not really the case in effect though. For the reasons discussed in the paragraphs above, teaching (particularly for women) is an activity that requires more time than men due to the student expectations for women to act as carers; acts they must carry out for the sake of student evaluations and being seen as ‘good’ at their job (Boring et  al., 2016; Fan et  al., 2019). Therefore, giving women who opt for teach-only roles more teaching, an activity which takes exponentially more time to conduct than they are likely given in their workload, is a false basis for a better work/life balance. Such positions only task them with duties that require more care to be provided and increased pressure to be available to students more of the time. The system does, however, work for some people. Depending on disciplinary area and how workloads are allocated, some studies point to women having a better work/life experience due to teach-only or heavily teaching-focused roles. This is a positive aspect because it shows that the system can work as intended, and people researching in this area can demonstrate to universities how to make the system work in practice because it is one that often fails in its intent. There are nonetheless other issues with teach-only positions which are so often directed at women whether they work or not, and that primarily reside around the impact of directing teaching positions to women and what that does to the gender equity of the research environment (Berheide et al., 2020). The answer is ultimately that even if the issues with teach-only positions are addressed more widely, as a position that is often advertised to women for family and relationship reasons, the impact is nonetheless detrimental to women in research when it is research that is so often thought to be the primary objective of the sector. Many of the same findings are true when we talk about women in leadership positions in higher education. There may be more women students in universities, and across the board more women in academic and staff rolls, and yet women remain the minority in the professoriate and leadership roles (Elg & Jonnergård, 2010). Why this is, is not a mystery. Again, we see men having the clearer path through the university hierarchy as they have fewer barriers to overcome which inevitably leads to more men

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in leadership roles. At the same time, universities are also able to claim that these appointments are based on merit, which they very well might be, but as this chapter, book, and Bourdieu have always made clear, there is rarely merit in education: appraising people on their achievements and how they compare to others is not a merit-based activity when you know that they have started from such different positions—such as those caused by gender or other marginalising factors (Bourdieu, 1977, 1988). When these issues have been known for decades, that does raise questions about how to deal with this situation now, that might have a different impact to the concerns raised in prior decades. On one hand, we must focus on the growing research and attitudes towards equity and marginalised groups. When universities are quick to praise themselves for their achievements in diversity and inclusion, highlighting issues through diversity and inclusion committees may have more traction today than they have had in the past. We nonetheless know that universities will not invite these conversations, and as such, it will fall to the researchers in gender studies, equity, and inclusion to start these difficult conversations with institutions who for so long have been happy to vocalise their achievements without offering solid proof of what they have done (Ford, 2016). These conversations will ultimately have to extend beyond discussions though, as we have already seen how relying on merit can have very gendered results in a setting built around male privilege. Universities must be forced to admit they have structural issues that need to be addressed and strategies adopted to, in a best-case scenario, lead to structural and systemic changes rather than the band-aide measures we so commonly see today (Barnard et al., 2021). Some researchers also highlight the importance of these issues being raised from a researcher/committee standpoint due to the complexities involved in individual resistance. When studies have examined individual opposition, the options are few, and when most institutions are trying to ignore systemic problems around gender and marginalisation, they are likely happy for the status quo in individual resistance to continue. There are four primary forms of resistance to the challenges women face in higher education, the first of which is to leave the academy. This move of course comes with issues surrounding representation and equity, but again, it solves the issues for universities who do not really want to confront the issue in the first place. For researchers in social justice and equity, however, every time a marginalised person leaves the academy it only increases the need for us to ramp up the fight for the sector to make real

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changes and stop paying lip service to the declarations splashed around their websites and social media pages. The other three methods of resistance all rely on the individual taking action, and include not taking part in certain activities, raising issues with supervisors, and raising issues through official channels such as diversity and inclusion committees (Brorsen Smidt et al., 2020). The problem with these methods are that they have to happen at all, and that the fight for equity is left to the individual which means they are spending even more of their time and effort seeking out an equitable workplace when doing so takes them away from the research and teaching that will lead to promotion, and is again another example of a hurdle placed in front of women (and other marginalised groups) that are not placed in front of men. Perhaps the biggest issue with a system having been created where women have to fight for their own justice is that, as Brorsen Smidt et al. (2020) tell us, a woman fighting for equity is one who can be ignored in the male-dominated system, and even worse, a woman fighting for her rights is one that invites harassment in the workplace because it is common to ignore, harass, and provide tokenistic solutions to these genuine and systemic issues. Researchers have known for decades that these actions can result from negative actions. They can begin with actions where someone is simply ignored, to take actions where people actively aim to harass, and, for lack of a better word, bully women staff (Lester, 2009). Yet these actions can also occur in ways that make it difficult to highlight the issue to superiors or human research departments. In the modern workplace (and universities are no different), we know that targeted abuse and harassment is rare as these are the things that can be proven to human resource departments and can result in consequences to the perpetrator (Hodgins & Mannix McNamara, 2017). It is much more likely that harassment will come in more insidious ways that circumvent traditional rules about behaviour. This results in harassment coming via the person being ignored, their ideas being criticised, their ideas being purposely misrepresented, the person intentionally being given incorrect information, or the person being the victim of the increased levels of rumours and gossip (Heffernan & Bosetti, 2021). These actions are how women’s voices are lowered in the academy. These tactics can be used to ostracise women, make them feel uncomfortable, and lower the value and power of their voice even when they are fighting for equity and justice. Researchers, and by extension universities, are not unaware of these facts. The contradictory discourses of women in

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higher education are a common topic of discussion. On one hand, universities will speak of empowerment and equity as their guiding principles, but on the other, they continue to partake in activities that they know impact on women and marginalised groups such as the fallacy of meritocracy (Sakhiyya & Locke, 2019). It is the fact that universities continue to say the right things, and tell people that they are doing the right things that fools some to believe that enough is happening, when in fact for the women of the academy, who make up the majority of people in most university settings, they know all too well that the actions are minimal, and words are meaningless if there is no commitment behind them (Smidt et al., 2021).

Summary The discussion of women in the academy is perhaps the most significant assessment because in terms of number, women are the most marginalised group in the academy. They make up a majority of students and staff, and yet that are so often made to feel like outsiders in the classrooms whose content remains designed for the benefit of men, and even when they perform better, the institution still has a way of making them feel inadequate. For women academics, the path into the academy is lined with barriers that their male counterparts do not face, and women are less represented in the professoriate and leadership roles. What this chapter has made clear is how, even as we are beginning to approach the mid-twenty-first-century, is that we have known about these issues for decades, and for decades universities have been resistant to any form of systemic change. As we saw in our analysis of disability in the academy (and we will see in the coming chapters), universities are keen to provide some solutions to overcome or temporarily remove some of the problems, but rarely do these changes involve systemic changes that will permanently remove the barriers. We know for the most part much of this comes down to money. The genuine solutions to so many structural issues that impact on marginalised groups will take time (which costs money), and a financial expense to fix, and universities do not want to make that commitment. Yet this is where a major problem lies with so much research about social justice in higher education: the declaration that universities are doing something, when their actions show they are doing very little. This is the problem with university leadership so quickly turning to the

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corporate lines and political spin. The assessments and discussions are carried out in a way that downplays the problem and magnifies what is being done. I can only speak from a disability standpoint, but I know that if conversations about disability started with honesty about the issues and problems in solving them, I would be inclined to think that a much more serious attempt was being made to solve the problems. However, one of the crucial reasons that this chapter and analysis has been led by Kate Smithers is to inform the evaluation beyond the literature and beyond what the studies tell us. There is a factual element to these assessments, and the impact of lived experiences on how they make someone respond to the issues at hand. In this chapter we have looked at why decades of assessment has in some ways resulted in so little change, but this has been done in a way that Kate hopes tells women that we see the problems and know they persist, and for those readers like Troy who are an outsider looking in, we are here to fight for equity alongside you even if we will never truly understand the negative impacts of gender and being a woman in higher education.

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CHAPTER 7

Sexual Identity in Higher Education

As a researcher whose work focuses on marginalised groups in educational settings, a lot of my life involves being fortunate enough to work with people who share my passion for equality and making life easier for current and future people stepping into the world of universities. This also means combining my knowledge of higher education administration and structures, and how they impact on marginalised groups, with scholars who have knowledge and experience studying different aspects of specific marginalised people and groups. Thus, what I have been able to learn from the extensive expertise of James Burford in the years that I have known him from working together in Melbourne to both knowing working in the United Kingdom, has been paramount in shaping the way I understand and think about sexual identity in the academy. Working with and learning from James has been an opportunity that knows no bounds in terms of the knowledge he shares. It is because of James’ in-depth understanding of the topic at hand that I was so pleased that he agreed to co-­ author this chapter where we examine sexual identity in the academy. Sexual identity as a research topic is one that has been at the forefront of many researchers’ work for several decades. Like most research on marginalised groups, however, the issue is not about the volume of research, the quality of research, or the ease of implementing recommendations, it With James Burford. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 T. Heffernan, The Marginalised Majority in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41432-9_7

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is about those in the circle of power choosing to ignore this work. The same is true of sexual identity. It is the process of research being ignored by those in power that makes works such as this necessary even after decades of research. Members of each marginalised group face a certain set of circumstances, and it is up to someone else (who often does not face any of the previously mentioned barriers) to decide if, or what, is done to make a more inclusive learning and working environment. This is why Miller and Downey (2020) argue that sometimes talking about trying to solve the issues of a single marginalised group cannot be done without considering the obstacles people from other marginalised groups are facing because though their problems may originate from different roots, their impact on the people, the solutions, and how difficult it is to action these solutions is sometimes shared. Therefore, while they highlight that queer students may face similar challenges to those marginalised by gender, disability, race, or class, we must still properly dissect the issues each group encounter in the white, male, middle-class, heterosexual, able-­ bodied space of higher education (Miller & Downey, 2020). It is for these reasons that as we begin our third chapter examining the barriers of a specific marginalised group in higher education, that we will so often refer to the previous chapters and forthcoming chapters. As with many marginalised people in higher education, it is all too easy for queer people to feel alone and isolated. But we, the marginalised people, are now the majority, and we can support each other in times of discomfort, and help build each other up in times of success.

Students and Sexual Identity The importance of making universities more welcoming spaces for all students, regardless of sexual identity, is often related back to the major advantages of universities and university degrees. Primarily these advantages to university access and graduation relate to higher lifetime incomes, more stable employment, better physical and mental health outcomes due to greater access to health services and security, and larger rates of civic engagement (Marine, 2017). We think most people would argue these are key aspects to maintaining a comfortable life, and even if someone would like to question these items as advantages, we feel most people would not dispute that they should at least be options for every member of the community.

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That someone’s sexual or gender identity, and by that we mean those who do not identify with heteronormative and/or cisgender societal expectations or stereotypes, can have aspects of their life’s journey impacted upon by their experiences at university is why these discussions are important. If someone’s sexual identity is playing a role in their inclusion in higher education, a sector that claims to be dedicated to diversity and inclusion, than we have a problem that must be addressed. While there is often some overlap in discussions around gender and sexual identity, and in the research that is conducted, we have endeavoured to separate the two as much as possible because they are, of course, different issues. The primary issues in the current university space are that sexual identity is causing a series of direct and indirect discriminations and negative experiences. The first relates to environment (that of the university space as a whole), and the more specific space of the classroom environment. These can still be places of homophobic (alongside many other types of) discrimination. At the same time, faculty can make a significant difference to these settings. They can make things better, or worse, and the advantages of representation, as with all marginalised groups, is extremely positive, but not always possible. Though, any practice that increases the success rates for people inclusively of their sexual identity will lead to a future with more diverse and inclusive faculty members. The third major issue is that universities are getting better at providing support services for students (and staff) which though may not directly assist with getting people into universities, it may help them stay enrolled and succeed once inside the classroom (Bradbury-Jones et al., 2020). These aspects are also changing constantly. They change by time, they change by country, university, faculty, and classroom. Nonetheless, time is perhaps the greatest driver of change. Assessments of university culture and sexual identity in the university from a decade ago, let alone in the late twentieth century or before, have so often taken great steps forward, but the steps forward are sometimes that in a public space, open discrimination has reduced—but the hidden discrimination is still evident. In this sense, the same is true of public attitudes to disability, gender, and other forms of marginalisation. In a public setting, open discrimination will not be tolerated, so the aggression changes to manifest in ways less likely to result in reprimand (Heffernan & Bosetti, 2020, 2021). While these changes are playing out in real time and being studied in detail by researchers, we have also come to learn that understanding these issues, implications, and solutions can be solved by taking on new

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methodological approaches (Burford, 2015). We need to appreciate what is taking place both with the experiences of people with different sexual identities entering the classroom, and we also need to explore the beliefs and experiences of those people already in the class, and leading the class, to get an idea of the prejudices that still exist, and why they persist (Marine, 2017; Tetreault et al., 2013).

Visibility in the Classroom This work builds upon the understanding that all of us—staff and students alike—arrive to higher education with a sexual identity. While those who have sexual identities which confirm to heteronorms have often remained unmarked, other university inhabitants have historically been expected to ‘pass’ and conform to expectations of society and higher education. Some researchers highlight this point by tracking the history of sexual identity in higher education in terms of research and discussions around faculty and identity, only to find highly limited references once we reach the mid-­ twentieth century. Thus, it is clear that prior to this growth in research, issues of sexual identity were swept under the carpet, or at least, omitted from official research and findings (Clawson, 2014). Knowing for how long these issues were not discussed predictably translates into visibility in the classroom, students’ comfort in disclosing their sexual identities, and the likely response of those in the classroom. Researchers refer to this as the classroom climate, and the classroom climate may be determined by a significant number of factors such as class composition and research area (diversity is likely to be more welcomed in the arts or humanities than business and law [Heffernan, 2022b]), but on the whole, students report entering classrooms to find them being somewhat hostile environments, or at least, environments hesitant to change (Garvey & Rankin, 2015). Part of this is about perception and how students feel their sexual identity is perceived by others, but it is also the case that students often report on the classroom environment being more hostile than expected (Garvey et al., 2015). Why this is the case is open to interpretation. We would certainly be of the opinion that if someone enters a space and they find it to be more hostile than they expected, then the reason the unexpected scenario occurred is likely that the space was advertised, or presumed to be (because someone such as a university said it was) a more inclusive space than it was ever likely to be in reality (Garvey & Rankin, 2015). For this reason, the

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need for more inclusive curricula, resources used, and support services for students with different sexual identities needs to increase because it is clear universities are not where they think they are in terms of welcoming and inclusive environments. The notion of visibility from a Bourdieusian standpoint is rather clear, and hopefully, if this book is coming together as planned, readers should already be able to piece together why inclusion for different sexual identities was a problem, is a problem, and is so difficult to fix. Universities have been, for virtually 90% of their existence, places for middle and upper-class white men who were assumed to be heterosexual, first through the privilege of religion and then through the privilege of wealth. As much of a stereotype as it sounds, even for most of the last century this meant men went to the university while their wives were busy at home. Hannah Forsyth tells us about the place of academic wives during the twentieth century, and the role they played in getting their husbands positions and promotions (Forsyth, 2014). Amongst this backdrop, and the little systemic change that has really happened in universities, it is not surprising that barriers, either real or perceived (which are still very real to the person who has to deal with them) remain in place.

Safety and Belonging If universities still need to dedicate resources to increasing equality for all marginalised groups, one aspect that is significantly different from one group to another is safety. Studies around safety and sexual identity are almost contradictory in their findings. On one hand, students feel physically safe on campus for the most part in terms of not feeling as though they will be attacked because of their sexual identity. On the other, however, that is not to say they feel safe as prejudice and homophobia are never far away (Allen et al., 2020). We certainly know that homophobia is far from eradicated in universities (or societies), and these findings similarly demonstrate the need for continued changes to university support services. It should also be pointed out that this is not from a lack of trying. Most universities have detailed policies and plans to try and deal with the issues that might make someone feel unsafe because of how their sexuality (or other marginalising characteristic) is viewed on campus, but there is nonetheless a discrepancy between these policies, how they are actioned, and what their results are in practice (Pryor, 2018).

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This scenario is of course not isolated to issues around sexual identity, as sexual identity and gender are commonly cited areas where universities are lacking in policies that reflect the changing landscape of identities and people ‘coming out’ or disclosing their identities or preferences. Part of the problem has been argued to be the implication of university policies being designed years or decades ago, and then being updated—rather than completely overhauled—since that time. As a result, the policies, guidelines, and safety protocols protecting people regarding their sexuality or gender are some way off being an effective safety measure due to the ever-shifting conceptualisations of these areas (Boskey & Ganor, 2020). Some researchers have suggested this leaves people on the periphery of university policies and support services because though policies exist that include them, they are included in more of an afterthought manner (Tsfati & Nadan, 2021). The problem with policies and situations such as this is that the policies inevitably identify those who are central to policy creation as there will be some who the policies encompass and protect more than others. This situation becomes much more complex when they occur in a space that is traditionally not safe for those with different sexual identities such as in religious-based universities. There are several factors in this equation that must be considered. To begin with, let us not forget that university study and life, particularly for those of a young age entering universities after high school, is often characterised as a period of self-exploration and transformation as students so often step away from the confines of family, hometowns, and high school communities as they enter what is usually a very liberal and progressive environment (Falconer & Taylor, 2017). For very clear reasons, this can be a significant environmental change for someone with a different sexual identity, or who is not sure where their identity sits. It may thus also be clear why religious universities may stifle this personal growth and encourage people to conform to the religious expectations of these educational spaces. These scenarios do, however, depend on the institution being attended and how strictly religious belief is adhered to by the students. Most studies about religious universities and sexual identity therefore tend to originate from the United States as some of their religious universities often have stronger adherence to religious doctrines than those in other areas (Falconer & Taylor, 2017). Researchers point to these university spaces needing to be navigated with caution, with individuals making choices about what actions will be

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seen as progressive, and what may be seen as unacceptable. It may seem somewhat unbelievable that these spaces need to be navigated with caution, but that is likely based on your own experiences with religion in higher education. In extreme cases, people with different sexual identities are being confronted with institutional surveillance, and hostility towards their choices which are justified on religious grounds (Bailey & Strunk, 2018). These scenarios are detrimental to people trying to explore their sexuality and learn about themselves and who they are; it often leads people into the confines of cisgender and heterosexuality that the Church has always pushed, and makes them feel different for not adhering to these expectations (Bailey & Strunk, 2018). This circumstance may be what most people expect of religious connections, but the opposite to what they expect of a university experience. Universities are so often tied to progressiveness, but progressiveness around sexuality declines as expectations are religious adherence increase. What also cannot be ignored again (because it is a common theme when discussing marginalised communities) is that the consequences of marginalisation increase if someone identifies (or people believe them to be) from two or multiple marginalised backgrounds because this results in compounding negative reactions (Heffernan, 2022c, 2023; Heffernan & Harpur, 2023). In the case of safety and belonging on campus, we know that there are issues around sexual identity and acceptance, and how much they feel welcomed and supported on campus. Yet we also know that if someone does not have a sexual identity that matches the status quo, and they are also disabled, from a different social class, from a different racial background, or from any of the many marginalised groups in higher education, then potential barriers in their experience and success will only grow in number and size (Chan, 2017; Seelman, 2014b). These findings are, yet again, a reminder of why the background and context of every marginalised person in higher education is worthy of respect and assessment to ensure they receive an equitable experience. However, it is also why social justice researchers, and those researching about marginalised communities, must continue to work together to advance the cause. The advantages to research collaborations across social categories of difference are great, and the power, or social capital as Bourdieu would tell us, from working together provides a much larger body of evidence that universities will find harder to ignore.

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The Hidden Statistics For all that we know about students, sexual identity, and the impact on their university lives, academic success, and what happens to them post their university experience, there is also a significant amount that we do not know, and we will say up front that this is likely because universities do not want to know the answer. There is at least two parts to this issue because to begin with, universities do track copious amounts of information about the prospective students, current students, and what happens to students after their studies. Sometimes that information is mandated by governments, and other times this is so the university can track results to improve marketing and student experience. Yet it goes without saying that if this information is collected without sexual identity (or gender, or any other marginalising factor) demographics being recorded, or at least publicly released, it is very easy to see how the information being collected may not be resulting in systems that would improve the university experience for students from different sexual identity backgrounds (Grimwood, 2017). To go one step further, however, some researchers would suggest that this is not an oversight, but an intentional step to prevent information becoming public knowledge. Failing to collect, or make public, the information that might be negative towards the university’s efforts is a form of discrimination as it disguises what systems are not working. This method ultimately allows institutions to act as if they did not know what problems were occurring around student experience and post-graduation data, and thus not have to act on it, because they never had the data that made clear that action was needing to be taken (Crowhurst & Emslie, 2014). It is also worth mentioning that though this does not apply to all universities, and the social shift means universities are increasingly ensuring they listen to the voices of all their students, when they manufacture ways to ignore voices, this act is always happening in front of the backdrop of their declarations around equity and inclusion.

The University Setting We have spoken before in this chapter about the importance of universities and the overall progressiveness to students exploring themselves and their sexuality. On one hand, universities represent a place students (particularly undergraduates) attend as they enter adulthood, and on the other hand, their growth is allowed to continue often without the confines of family or

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hometowns or cities. There are nonetheless other challenges and complexities to this situation; some of which are positive, some of which are negative. Homophobia is perhaps the most common issue students exploring their sexuality will face as while hostility and abuse do happen in universities, the issues tend to begin with a general lack of understanding about sexuality, and then decrease as more inclusive views are taught in the university space or potentially increase in religious institutions or in institutions located within conservative locations (Forbes, 2020). These situations have nonetheless led some researchers to look towards the positives of the opportunity to educate people in a rather progressive and liberal environment. Just as students marginalised by their sexuality or gender may find their university experience to be one of the first where they can explore themselves and reveal or disclose who they really are, for many other students, university can also be the first time when they are introduced to new subcultures and ways of thinking. This is particularly the case for people entering the university from high school settings. High schools tend to be places where homophobia is largely tolerated, student expression is limited to the confines of the educational setting, and an overall lack of acceptance of new ideas is low (Holland et al., 2013). Therefore, university can be seen as a place to not only let people be true to themselves, but it can also be used as a space where other students can effectively be re-socialised out of their traditional, limited, high school views, to become more accepting adults. It is also necessary to point out that, particularly when we are talking about undergraduate students of 18 or 19 years old, their views will often not be of their own creation. Bourdieu would tell us about cultural trajectory and habitus, and how what someone believes and what someone thinks is largely dictated by the environment into which they are raised (Wacquant, 1989). However, if we reflect on the issues of universities with religious connections, it becomes clearer why those attending may have more conservative views. Similarly, in universities based in conservative states, and with people attending who grew up in and graduated from high schools in small predominantly Christian towns in the United States (for example), the influence childhood and adolescence can have on adult views again becomes clear (Holland et al., 2013). It is nonetheless worth acknowledging that an argument exists that universities are less liberal and less progressive places today than they perhaps where 20 years ago. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, universities were more

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privileged places than they are today. A smaller percentage of the population attended, and even though privilege was tied to who could attend, that portion was much of the time a more progressive and liberal crowd. Today, however, in many nations, up to 40% of the adult population is now attending university. With this increase in the population and diversity of ideas, it sadly seems to be the case that more conservative views are now more readily entering the academy (Heffernan, 2022b). Researchers have known for some time that universities have had the ability to change how people think. This absolutely does not make life easier for people exploring or revealing their sexuality in the relative safety of a university space as they may, particularly in their first years, experience some levels of resistance from student colleagues raised in cisgendered, heterosexual environments where those marginalised by gender or sexuality where either forced to hide who they were, or experienced hostility. However, there is a solid expectation that by the end of university, the re-socialising will not only make the university classroom a safer space, the university will also be sending out graduates into the world with more tolerant views. These views can also occur either from general osmosis of students being in more inclusive and diverse environments, or they can be aided by compulsory first-year diversity and inclusion classes (Engberg et al., 2007). These systems may be a way that universities can act as a way of minimising prejudice, but the point remains that they are doing so in a manufactured setting that may assist in acceptance beyond the university years, but does not actually fix the problem. While it is difficult to picture how universities can expand their influence into the community beyond the actions of their graduates and research projects, criticism of what happens in universities is fair and reflects a lot of the support methods universities use to aid people from marginalised backgrounds rather than acting to make systemic changes. Universities creating safe spaces for people marginalised by their sexuality is one example of providing a safe space, but only reproducing inequality by not addressing the problem and making the entire university a safe space. Similarly, when universities know that some disciplinary areas are more tolerant than others and likely to be more welcoming of diverse student populations, this is positive for the students who want to enter those spaces, but is also evidence of wider problems around inclusivity that are being ignored (Forbes, 2020). These scenarios inevitably lead to questions around what type of support is being provided to those marginalised by their sexual identity. As we

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have seen in the above discussions, support services and safe spaces are often available and do have the desired positive impact. Yet the support that is provided to people marginalised by their sexuality remains troubled by the issues surrounding those services provided to those marginalised by other characteristics or demographics. When support services are provided (and this extends from providing safe spaces to in-class assistance for those with disabilities) these supports are based around money. Therefore, though the barriers created to make life more difficult for those marginalised by their sexuality can be somewhat overcome or subverted by using money to create safe spaces, this method does little to solve the issues that have created the barriers; it just provides a way to temporarily overcome them due to investment (Heffernan, 2022a). A clear problem with these types of ‘solutions’ is that they address the visible complications of the barriers that are evident for all to see, but they do nothing to contend with the barriers’ deep roots of prejudice and sexism. It is perhaps obvious to say that if an issue is temporarily solved by investment, if that investment reduces, the barriers can return. It is also necessary to consider in this final section before we move on to the impacts of sexual identity for academics, to also assess the nuances of sexuality and its complications for students. In this chapter, we have examined the prejudice they face as being caused by students coming from high schools where homophobia is somewhat tolerated or dismissed as a joking matter, or people have come from very conservative areas, or people originate from very religious backgrounds which can inevitably cause issues with the inclusion of people who are not cisgendered and heterosexual. One aspect that is rarely reported on is the relationships between those people marginalised by their sexuality. The research into these spaces is regularly focused on overcoming the wider-population’s homophobic and conservative views, that we do not always stop to consider that the environments and safe spaces universities are creating are also places of tension. Discrimination and isolation of people marginalised by their sexuality is not limited to the prejudice outside of the safe spaces, these aspects are, of course, also present within these marginalised communities and within the safe spaces universities are trying to create (Evans et al., 2017). We use the term ‘of course’ deliberately, because of course a group of people whose only connection is their sexuality are not destined to automatically get along. Yet this observation only provides more evidence of why universities need to address these issues from the roots because without

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systemic change, these issues will continue to be a cause of distress, discrimination, and isolation. At the same time, how successful universities are at this makes a difference to enrolments—and this topic is thus an important one to reiterate because it is enrolments and growing student numbers that is likely to cause universities to initiate genuine change. Researchers know that students marginalised by their sexuality (and gender, and likely other factors) are aware that their university choice is in part a question of program expertise and prestige, but also one of culture and climate (Goldberg et al., 2021). It is up to the individual to prioritise the significance of program prestige vs learning culture, and climate and in most cases it appears a place at a globally renowned university will outweigh questions around inclusivity and climate. In many other situations, however, climate will play an equal or major role in a prospective student’s selection (Goldberg et al., 2021). For universities that are not globally renowned or the most prestigious university in their country, this should be of a concern because students not attending the most elite universities in the world tend to have choices; if attending a well-regarded university is the objective, then an institution’s history of inclusion and diversity becomes much more relevant.

Academics and Sexuality Like many of the marginalised groups this book has touched on, academics marginalised by sexuality or gender are much more visible than they were even a decade ago. The choice to disclose identities and to be yourself means that it is less about marginalised groups now being in higher education, and more about them identifying themselves (Maritz & Prinsloo, 2021). Yet at the same time, these actions come with negative consequences in a space that remains the domain of privileged, white, able-bodied, cisgendered, and heterosexual males. Primarily, this means that academics who do not fit this outdated and damaging mould do report higher levels of harassment, discrimination, violence, and other forms of aggression (Robinson, 2022). That this aggression takes place (and we suspect few, if any, researchers would disagree with the suggestion) has several consequences. For one, it raises questions about disclosure for those who have concealed, or can conceal, their identity. This may involve someone simply not revealing their sexual identity, and then whether they have the power to pass (or not

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pass) as part of the status quo in higher education (Sumara, 2021). That is to say, whether or not they have the ability (physically and/or emotionally) to pass as a cisgendered and heterosexual member of staff to spare the likelihood of prejudice and harassment. However, the issues do go further than ones of prejudice. For example, we also know that sexual identity is linked to perceptions of professionalism within the university. Those who are not cisgender and heterosexual report increased regulation and surveillance of their work (Davies & Neustifter, 2021). That professionalism is at all tied to sexuality or gender is perhaps one of the greatest indicators that the academy may have come a long way in being a more inclusive and diverse work environment, and yet, the systemic problems persist. We would also suggest that this increased surveillance is a form of discrimination and one that is more difficult to track or record, and thus report. Over the last few decades instances and types of harassment and prejudice in the sector have decreased but this is partly about changing views, and partly because systems have caught up to prevent these types of actions. Yet the fact that people who do not fit the mould report higher levels of regulation and critique is the type of discrimination that is difficult to prove as it likely cannot be assessed on an individual level, but can only be determined by widespread assessment which is difficult to conduct and therefore less likely to occur (Davies & Neustifter, 2021). Some university spaces are aware of situations like the above and appreciate the significance in the difference sexual identity or other marginalising factors can place in an academic’s life. Groups and professional associations are exploring the challenges people face and the policies that might allow them to, at the very least professionally, try and counter some of the implications people face due to their sexuality, their gender, their disability, or their race or class (Hastings & Mansell, 2015). These efforts might be looking towards solutions, but the fact is, solutions are rarely forthcoming and even when they are, widespread implementation is equally difficult to achieve. In the above paragraphs we spoke about people who do not fit the ‘mould’ of academia experiencing extra surveillance in their work, the fact that this continues to happen is evidence of the efforts to solve these problems not being effective, or facing hurdles from universities. Another example of this comes from what the extra efforts to be an academic from a different (meaning, not white, middle-class, able-bodied, cisgendered, and heterosexual) is that the extra work required to fit in, is happening in a neoliberal environment (Jones Jr & Calafell, 2012). When success and

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failure of academia can so often be determined, or at the very least heavily influenced, by achievements such as research outputs, grant success, or keynote presentation invites, that some people in the academy are watched more closely, expected to spend more time explaining their actions, and then expected to produce more than their share—all of these extra efforts occur at a time when those who do not identify as being from a marginalised community can continue to conduct their work without surveillance or the weight of explanation or expectation. Bourdieu knew this was all part of his belief that there is no merit in education, or educational institutions (Bourdieu, 1988). For decades, perhaps centuries, people have latched on to the idea that education is about effort, and the person who works the hardest, will be the smartest, will get the best grades, and will have the best career outcomes. We explored in earlier chapters why this is not the case in a practical setting. To reiterate though, academic success is about opportunity that is most often determined before a child is even born. Family history, place of birth, parent’s occupations, or relationship with work are all going to give strong indicators of how ‘successful’ someone is at education regardless of how hard they work. As we know, Bourdieu (1977, 1988) broke this trajectory in his own success, but he was also the first to describe himself as the exception, the lucky one, the one for whom education was a pathway to a different life that was not available to thousands of others. These scenarios then relate to how much effort those who have succeeded must put into clearing the path for those behind them. Researchers from marginalised backgrounds often talk at length about their duties and obligations as pioneers and activists for others marginalised by the same factors, but this work comes at the cost of them otherwise completing the tasks that advance someone in an academic career (Weiser et al., 2018). This also is not just a discussion around personal obligation, however, it is also a question of representation. Does the person marginalised by their sexuality, gender, or disability (for example), best serve the marginalised community by activist work, or by pushing as hard as they can to represent marginalised communities, and have the option to enter the professoriate or other leadership roles. We do not have an answer to this question, but these are the debates and internal struggles marginalised people must face that privileged communities have the advantage of remaining largely oblivious to in daily life.

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Sexual Identity in Higher Education It is questions such as that posed above about the best way forward for a marginalised academic that those marginalised by sexual identity face every day. There are no clear answers, there are positive and negative outcomes to each scenario, and often, only they can truly evaluate these situations and make up their own choices. Research into sexual identity and gender as they relate to working with people and in educational settings has grown significantly in the last few years, and it is this work that goes beyond telling us that there is a problem to exploring what those problems are in practice (Simmons, 2017). In practice, what we are learning is that those impacted by being marginalised because of their sexuality face an ultimate dichotomy of existence. On one side, they talk about experiencing hypervisibility. If they choose to reveal or disclose who they are (if that is an option) and thus make the decision to choose to not pass as the mould the university expects, they will be known for this, and this may be a feature of themselves that draws attention before them as a person or their work as an academic (Sumara, 2021). At the same time though, people also describe this feeling as making them invisible. You become known because of an aspect of who you are, not actually who you are, and in a professional setting, not because of the expertise you bring to your students or the knowledge you bring to your research area. People see you as a marginalised person first, and it is only behind that identity characteristic that they see, often only in the shadows, glimpses of someone’s academic work (Jaekel & Nicolazzo, 2020). This situation is also paired with an extremely difficult to overcome circumstance that this is challenging to solve through policy. These situations do not occur because of cognisant prejudice, or a willingness to not look beyond someone’s sexuality, but it can just be how privileged people react to those marginalised by any visible or intermittently apparent characteristic. There are also predictable, and sometimes, less predictable factors that must be considered in terms of what issues people must consider when it comes to their sexuality and personality. Perhaps the most obvious is the decision of whether to disclose their sexual identity to students. This decision (like gender, like visible or intermittently apparent disability etc.) is plagued with a mix of factors, one of which is choice. If the choice is up to the individual, however, the issues are somewhat clear. As was touched on earlier, the first issue is whether the academic’s sexuality will become the

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trait for which they are known rather than their expertise. This can be a negative simply because someone’s skills and knowledge will be overlooked, but it could also become more problematic as universities are slowly becoming less liberal and more conservative spaces (Heffernan, 2020, 2022b). To add to this consideration, we return to an aged but still relevant factor that some disciplinary areas are going to be more accepting, or perhaps a space where sexuality will matter less, than other disciplinary areas might be. The decision to ‘come out’ to students or not is also paired with issues around representation and activism. Researchers highlight that some people marginalised by their sexuality will be inclined to come out to students so that they can be themselves and the students can see an example of how sexual identity makes no difference to who someone is or the quality of their work. Conversely, some may choose to not disclose their sexuality for several reasons. Some may feel that their sexuality is simply not someone else’s business, others may choose not to because they feel there is too great a risk that doing so will change the dynamics of the classroom and relationships; particularly in disciplinary areas that are traditionally more conservative (Bennett et  al., 2015). Finally, these decisions are also made often with a level of guilt either because they are not carrying the torch of representation and activism that so many marginalised people are expected to carry, or because they have disclosed their sexuality and it has not had the desired effect with the student population (Bennett et al., 2015). There are also professional aspects of academia, sexuality, and what it means to be a couple or family; primarily those around people and policies for ‘couples’ and ‘families’ referring to cisgendered and heterosexual examples of family and not being prepared for couples and families who do not match this setting. Researchers noted two decades ago that the sometimes-common practice of duel academic hiring (when both members of a couple or family are academics, and employment found for both at a new institution to facilitate the move) rarely extended to couples who did not fit the mould (Fowler & DePauw, 2005). It was noted that these couples were offered fewer opportunities, and the reaction to those given opportunities was often negative because they were not seen as the same as a ‘traditional’ family. This situation is less of an issue today. This is not only because people have hopefully become more tolerant but also because the practice of dual academic hiring has reduced in occurrence. When the job market is shrinking and the competition for work is increasing, the need to recruit an

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academic and then contend with a dual hire is less necessary because positions can be filled more easily than ever before due to significantly increased competition. These circumstances do not, however, change that people marginalised by sexuality are expected to operate in university spaces in different ways. This includes the representation and activist roles discussed earlier, but it also includes elements of being expected to work together, particularly when people are from similar research roles. In some ways this may occur naturally as support programs and initiatives are created, they inevitably connect people marginalised by their sexuality with other people, and in a university setting, research opportunities may occur (Reinert & Yakaboski, 2017). The issue with this situation is predictably when people are expected to connect, and expected to have an interest to work together, because they share an identity with the same marginalisation. So much of the discussion and sexuality and academics nonetheless comes back to support and what services are offered to academics. We know sexuality in academia is a very specific issue that needs to be addressed in a very particular way, and even when it is done with the best intentions and with the most care and highest budgets, results still vary (Lee, 2021). The reasons for this are clear and have been set out by researchers for at least a decade. We consider Sleeman’s recommendations as a set of instructions that can be applied to supporting most marginalised groups as a set of practices and policies that are well intentioned, sometimes difficult to initiate, and difficult to implement. Seelman (2014a) says that support must be offered, this must include policy and procedural changes where needed, an institutional acceptance that the greater the diversity and inclusion, the easier it is for people to enter the space, make physical changes where needed, and finally, hold people to account. While no one doubts that these policies would improve institutional conditions, it is the broad notions of proving support and holding people to account that so often sound simple, but in reality, are very difficult to implement.

Summary What we see where sexual identity in the academy is concerned, both from the student and academic experience, is people who have existed in the academy since the beginning of these institutions being formed, but having spent centuries either concealing who they are, or the university pretending they did not know. The issue with either instance is that any suggestion that problems and issues were not occurring is that they now

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must be contended with later on, such as almost 1000 years later. This is not entirely the fault of universities, as liberal and progressive as they may have once been, they are also perhaps skewed reflections of society. That is to say, they may be more progressive places than the rest of the town, city, or country around them, but there will still be reflections of societal belief within the confines of the institution. We are thus left with universities being spaces where peoples’ thinking must sometimes be forced forward, and as we and researchers within this chapter have highlighted, any steps forward in the university will soon enough garner results in wider society too. Taking these steps, however, is not easy. For the same reasons as we have seen when discussing other marginalising factors in higher education, we are trying to make changes in institutions intentionally designed to be exclusionary and promote the success of a very select group of people. We also see the changes universities are making, and even the suggestions for change that many researchers are campaigning for, have to rely on policy and practice changes which as we know, does not in any timely manner result in systemic changes. It is nonetheless the importance of understanding the problems, and experiencing what solutions do and do not work, that will result in those campaigning for equity and inclusion designing solutions that may begin as policies and practices, but will end in potential systemic changes. As with all of these discussions though, we must also face the stark reality that if institutions actually desire to find structural and systemic changes that will reduce the influence of those who have always existed in, or benefitted from, being in the circle of power, or fitting the moulds that university study, work, and leadership most benefit.

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Heffernan, T., & Bosetti, L. (2020). University bullying and incivility towards faculty deans. International Journal of Educational Leadership. https://doi. org/10.1080/13603124.2020.1850870 Heffernan, T., & Bosetti, L. (2021). Incivility: The new type of bullying in higher education. Cambridge Journal of Education, 51(5), 641–652. https://doi. org/10.1080/0305764x.2021.1897524 Heffernan, T., & Harpur, P. (2023). Discrimination against academics and career implications of student evaluations: University policy versus legal compliance. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.108 0/02602938.2023.2225806 Holland, L., Matthews, T. L., & Schott, M. R. (2013). “That’s so gay!” Exploring college students’ attitudes toward the LGBT population. Journal of Homosexuality, 60(4), 575–595. https://doi.org/10.1080/0091836 9.2013.760321 Jaekel, K. S., & Nicolazzo, Z. (2020). Institutional commitments to unknowing gender: Trans* and gender non-conforming educators’ experiences in higher education. Journal of Homosexuality, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.108 0/00918369.2020.1848146 Jones, R. G., Jr., & Calafell, B. M. (2012). Contesting neoliberalism through critical pedagogy, intersectional reflexivity, and personal narrative: Queer tales of academia. Journal of Homosexuality, 59(7), 957–981. https://doi.org/10.108 0/00918369.2012.699835 Lee, C. (2021). Promoting diversity in university leadership: The argument for LGBTQ+ specific leadership programmes in higher education. Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education, 25(3), 91–99. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/13603108.2021.1877205 Marine, S. B. (2017). Changing the frame: Queering access to higher education for trans* students. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 30(3), 217–233. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351034029-­1 Maritz, J. E., & Prinsloo, P. (2021). Narrating the (dis) comfort and multiplicities of becoming faculty. Gender and Education, 33(6), 692–706. https://doi. org/10.1080/09540253.2020.1860198 Miller, R.  A., & Downey, M. (2020). Examining the STEM climate for queer students with disabilities. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, 33(2), 169–181. Pryor, J. T. (2018). Visualizing queer spaces: LGBTQ students and the traditionally heterogendered institution. Journal of LGBT Youth, 15(1), 32–51. https:// doi.org/10.1080/19361653.2017.1395307 Reinert, L.  J., & Yakaboski, T. (2017). Being out matters for lesbian faculty: Personal identities influence professional experiences. NASPA Journal About Women in Higher Education, 10(3), 319–336. https://doi.org/10.108 0/19407882.2017.1285793

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Robinson, S. (2022). Trans faculty and queer battle fatigue: Poetic (re) presentations of navigating identity politics in the academy. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/0951839 8.2022.2035457 Seelman, K. L. (2014a). Recommendations of transgender students, staff, and faculty in the USA for improving college campuses. Gender and Education, 26(6), 618–635. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2014.935300 Seelman, K. L. (2014b). Transgender individuals’ access to college housing and bathrooms: Findings from the National Transgender Discrimination Survey. Journal of Gay and Lesbian Social Services, 26(2), 186–206. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/10538720.2014.891091 Simmons, S.  L. (2017). A thousand words are worth a picture: A snapshot of trans* postsecondary educators in higher education. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 30(3), 266–284. https://doi.org/10.432 4/9781351034029-­4 Sumara, D. (2021). On the power of not passing: A queer narrative hermeneutics of higher education leadership. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 53(2), 144–157. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220620.2020.1814224 Tetreault, P. A., Fette, R., Meidlinger, P. C., & Hope, D. (2013). Perceptions of campus climate by sexual minorities. Journal of Homosexuality, 60(7), 947–964. https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2013.774874 Tsfati, M., & Nadan, Y. (2021). Queering the periphery and challenging the center: Transgender students in Israeli higher education. Gender, Place and Culture, 28(8), 1174–1195. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369x.2020. 1784103 Wacquant, L. (1989). Towards a reflexive sociology: A workshop with Pierre Bourdieu. Sociological Theory, 7(1), 26–63. https://doi.org/10.2307/202061 Weiser, S. G., Wagner, T. L., & Lawter, M. (2018). Double jeopardy: (Trans) versing higher ed as queer trans advocates. Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, 15(3), 323–339. https://doi.org/10.1080/15505170.2018.1542359

CHAPTER 8

Higher Education and Race

In discussing race in higher education, this chapter is guided by Rafaan Daliri-Ngametua, while I aim to provide the Bourdieusian lens by which we examine the data, and provide analysis on the trends that are common throughout the breadth of marginalised communities in higher education. To have the opportunity to learn from Rafaan’s expertise and life experiences has been invaluable to the preparation of this chapter and more widely how this book has interacted with race and other marginalising characteristics. As we have already seen with issues concerning other marginalising factors, the likelihood of abuse or public discrimination may be smaller than it once was, but it is still very present, and this is particularly the case for students (Ross et al., 2018). It also cannot be ignored that the likelihood for abuse and discrimination is somewhat tied to location and university governance. For example, just as we saw gender and sexuality be a discriminatory factor that persists in religious-based universities, racism continues to be more explicitly evident in some places than others, but that there is evidence from around the world that suggests racism is still an issue in universities (Adams et al., 2014). Much like the other issues discussed in this book, universities also play an interesting role in shaping how racism is dealt with in their classrooms and offices. Primarily that means acting as if the problem is solved, that the With Rafaan Daliri-Ngametua. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 T. Heffernan, The Marginalised Majority in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41432-9_8

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problem no longer exists, and that this happened because of the steps they have taken and the support services they have offered (Vaccaro, 2017). There are multiple issues with this approach. The first is that we know this happens largely because of marketing. Universities are not going to concede that racism remains a problem in their institution for students and staff. Instead, we see their websites and mission statements filled with declarations regarding the success of their inclusion and diversity efforts. In a world where universities are forced to operate like businesses and must compete with each other for funding, students, and staff, the outcome is going to be one where reality is skewed in the name of marketability. The problem is that these methods deny that problems exist. These false claims subsequently lower the need for the problems to be addressed (as the university is pretending they do not exist) and worse still, these methods put people experiencing racism into positions where they have to contend with a problem the university denies, and this makes raising issues and experiences more difficult, because again, the university has denied the existence of the problem (Vaccaro, 2017). It is difficult to quantify just how much worse the sector denying the problems around racism makes life for people of colour, but it is with this backdrop of denial and that enough has been done, and that the support services offered are effective, that this chapter begins the discussion of what race means in higher education. As with almost all aspects of marginalisation in higher education, Bourdieu has also been used extensively to provide a lens on which to focus on these issues for decades. Universities are white spaces, and have been for centuries. Race subsequently provides a barrier that begins even before people of colour set foot onto the grounds of the university; race is a barrier that begins as soon as those in power see someone of colour walking towards the gate. On top of this, once inside, the habitus of people of colour, their lives and experiences, may or may not be different, but issues around cultural trajectory and social capital have nonetheless been raised. In a university, people of colour need to prove that they belong before they enter the field (Dingel & Sage, 2021). For white people and those whose marginalisations may not be evident on visual inspection, they are welcomed with fewer barriers, and those barriers are raised as differences become evident. This chapter is thus not only about what the implication of race is for people of colour in universities, but also how and why the barriers are maintained by those who wish to keep universities the domain of the privileged minority.

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A Starting Point In social justice research and investigations into marginalised majorities, a common criticism from those outside the field revolves around issues of reflection and improvement. That is to say, people question why we sometimes focus on what has happened, and not what is happening and the improvements that have been made. This is sometimes particularly evident in areas such as race where one might argue that significant improvements have been made. However, what has happened is entirely relevant as generations of cultural trajectory have been shaped by human-imposed barriers, and just because some of those barriers have been lifted, or in many cases slightly moved out of the way, this does not lead to an immediate removal of the consequences some groups have faced. It is also important to consider how the impact of some marginalisations has changed over time. Some people may think that just because racism in higher education sometimes no longer consists of overtly racist attitudes and decisions being made that the issues have been solved. Of course, that is not the case and modern society forcing people to conceal their prejudices can make life more difficult for marginalised people as they must contend with oppression that is concealed and much more difficult to prove and subsequently stop. Researchers have found that students from these groups are aware of policies designed to ensure they are not disadvantaged due to their language, but this does not stop the issues that are harder to prevent such as the same level of class integration as the majority language speakers (Oropeza et al., 2010). Universities have policies and practices in place to make sure people are not punished or prohibited from success due to their language, but this does not stop the issues that are harder to prevent such as the same level of class integration as the majority language speakers (Oropeza et al., 2010). The students thus know that this places different challenges in front of them, and because they are not challenges faced by most of the class, the disadvantages language can present is only evident to part of the class, and may not be recognised by others or indeed those leading the class. The result of these circumstances is that they may appear minimal, but they continue even though most university policies and codes of practice suggest they do not. More importantly, even though language can be an element that does not impact on class grade, it does impact on class outcome and is a reason why students with the same grade may complete their degree with the same results as their peers, but they do

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not have the same career prospects (Sterzuk, 2015). Thus, once again, we see prejudices from society enter the university space, and vice versa. This conclusion is one that was evident to Bourdieu and many researchers since (Bourdieu, 1988; Heffernan, 2022a). People from marginalised majorities face an almost never-ending series of barriers as they contemplate higher education. Many of these barriers begin prior to entering the university, and indeed begin in childhood and before birth (Bourdieu, 1977) because cultural trajectory, habitus, and social capital all matter in how someone approaches higher education and their access to such opportunities. The reality of marginalisation in the real world, however, is that even if all the barriers in life and in the university can be circumvented and if some other barriers are removed by society or the university, someone from a marginalised community can make it to graduation and complete their degree with equal or higher results than their privileged peers, and yet this does not equate to the same postgraduation success. Some societal barriers may be removed, and the university may lift many others, but following graduation, university graduates are placed back into wider society which may be more conservative, more prejudiced, and less likely to open doors for people from marginalised backgrounds. Therefore, just because the blatant prejudice of past decades and centuries may have somewhat passed, that is in no way to suggest that the issues have been solved. This point can also be clearly seen by the impact of COVID and how it affected those students who are people of colour (and who have other intersecting identities). We know that university students from ethnically diverse backgrounds experienced COVID differently to those from white backgrounds. This impact started at home, and then continued into their studies. For example, 54% of students of colour reported COVID altering their financial situations negatively which regularly impacted on their ability to continue their studies, and they had fewer family finance options to rely upon compared to their privileged peers (Molock & Parchem, 2020). For one-third of students, COVID impacted on their living situation, for 41% COVID was a cause of stress, for 33% anxiety, and for 18% depression. Yet, Molock and Parchem (2020), tell us that these results were primarily comprised of students of colour. Furthermore, it is the consequences of these results that are most concerning. Students of colour reported having their academic performance impacted by COVID at a rate of 46%; 49% said they would have to re-evaluate their educational plans, and ultimately 36% said they have had to change their career objectives—all significantly higher rates than white students (Molock & Parchem, 2020).

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What we see here are examples of lives outside of academia, impacting on academic studies, and later altering career outcomes. Why this happens, and how this happens, changes depending on culture, location, government approaches to university funding, and the universities themselves, but what is not in question is that this is about race. People of colour do face more barriers, and the primary question we must ask ourselves is really about how much impact this has, which again, will be determined by several factors within and outside of a university’s control (Grafnetterova & Banda, 2021).

The University Space and Race While the reality is that race will play a role before and after a student spends their years at university, that is not at all to be dismissive of the role universities play in race and success for students of colour. This discussion begins with the fact that even in recent years, researchers continue to find examples of universities ignoring the fact that white privilege and racism exist in their institutions. As discussed earlier, universities might write policies, and may have examples of overt racism being in decline or almost non-existent, but this does not mean it does not happen. A regular finding is that universities take the stance of essentially being colourblind to the fact that their classrooms are made up of diverse groups (Grindstaff & Mascarenhas, 2019). This system certainly allows them to continue their mantra of diversity and inclusion, but it ignores the fact that universities, with their 1000-year history of servicing very specific groups in very specific locations, will be different places to navigate for people from backgrounds that do not match the privileged people higher education was created to benefit. Even in the twenty-first century, when marginalised groups comprise the majority of university students and staff, marginalised groups still find themselves othered from their privileged peers and having to navigate spaces differently (Harlap & Riese, 2021). This is clearly a negative situation, and why pretending or advertising that these situations are solved are far more damaging to the cause than the sector continuing to work with people with these groups in the hope of making structural changes. That is not at all to suggest that universities have not used policy and practice changes to alter the aspects they do have control over. Yes, many steps forward have been made, but huge gaps in aspects that could be fixed are still present either because administratively they have not been

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attended to, or else perhaps because they have been put in the ‘too hard’ basket. The fact that coursework persists as one element where universities and faculties can actively remove their marginalised student populations under the guise of merit is one such area. For example, researchers have noted that coursework starting point (the point where courses begin with a set understanding of students’ already known knowledge) is one that can very quickly negatively impact many students from marginalised backgrounds (Leyva et al., 2021). In terms of sheer knowledge (not capability) studies have found regular instances of privileged students from privileged high schools or undergraduate programmes entering university courses with a higher/advanced level of knowledge compared to those who attended schools in challenging circumstances, or community colleges in the United States, or less prestigious universities in other areas. When lecturers then teach from the highest or even average level of knowledge in the class, this leaves some students behind, and these students are very often those marginalised by race, disability, or social class (Leyva et  al., 2021). To be clear, this has nothing to do with capability as the students have already met the requirements to be admitted into the university and into the course and class; this is about practices that disadvantage some students once several other barriers have been overcome. None of the above scenario would surprise Bourdieu. As someone who campaigned against the fact that merit simply hides privilege in education, and those who would be most disadvantaged by this fact are those from marginalised backgrounds and with a different cultural trajectory and set of social capital compared to their privileged peers, this situation is both predictable and expected (Bourdieu, 1988). What may have come as a surprise to an educational sociologist who started looking at such cultural inequalities in the 1960s is that these issues persist today as we approach the mid-twenty-first century. We all continue to see examples of university policy and declarations not matching their actions. Universities around the world so often pride themselves on their inclusive and diverse student populations, and so many talk about their efforts to right their wrongs of the past by employing better administration practices that make a more level-playing field for potential applicants. Yet, what does any of this matter if one of the first challenges new students encounter is coursework designed to purposely disadvantage some students over others? Why this happens is a somewhat difficult issue to pinpoint, however, it cannot be ignored that admissions tend to be one area of university business, but what goes on within a degree, or a single course, is controlled by a much

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smaller group of people (it may only be a single person), and so university policies are much harder to control and check when they may be the result of a single, or only a small, group of people. Away from instances such as the above where discriminatory practices that may or may not be intentional (though at this stage, it is unlikely someone in a university space is unaware of the connections between merit and privilege) occur as a result of certain actions are instances of more overt racism. These often come in the form of microaggressions, which researchers have found to occur everywhere and at a very high rate (Choi et al., 2021). The first point researchers make about microaggressions is that while only a short time ago the term, and impact of the action, was somewhat new in wider society and common use, that is no longer the case. In a university setting, students continue to have these experiences today, and it is vital to find ways to support and empower these students because the cumulative damage of microaggressions is high and has been shown to lead to students leaving their courses and the academy (Brown et al., 2019). These issues need to remain at the forefront of efforts towards diversity in universities, as research has shown that not talking about these issues can lead some people to conclude that racism does not exist and is subsequently a cause of students (white male students that is) raising questions about ‘reverse racism’ and white people becoming victims in diverse and inclusive settings inside and outside of the university (Cabrera, 2014). Even then, however, we must also consider the implication of these views (and microaggressions more broadly) coming from the dominant group (in terms of power) in most university settings which is those of white males. We know that when intended or unintended racial incidents occur and are caused by these groups, it leaves those in less powerful positions to be the ones to have to speak up. This results in additional emotional labour being undertaken. Further, Evans-Winters and Hines (2020) suggest that this can also risk being drawn into a difficult situation, or placing a target on oneself by speaking up. This is dependent on situation, for example, in a class setting, it would be hoped someone in a position of power (i.e., the lecturer or teacher) would intervene. In other instances, however, such as social interactions, these situations can go completely unchecked, and even if the perpetrator is challenged, in a social setting, white male dominance can be aggressive and overpowering, and therefore a reason that they may not be challenged (Cabrera, 2014).

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Universities are also not above making extremely poor decisions with significant negative consequences. For example: On the morning of Friday 3 February 2017, Femi Nylander—a Black Oxford alumnus—walked through the grounds of Oxford University’s Harris Manchester College. Later that morning a CCTV image of Femi was circulated to staff and students who were urged to ‘maintain vigilance’. (Joseph-Salisbury, 2019, p. 1)

While some people may call these issues ‘accidents’ or ‘poor decisions’ after the fact, they nonetheless happened because of the institutionalised whiteness that remains a factor in most university settings. Microaggressions, and institutional and sector-wide issues of racism that continue in the university system, alongside racism that persists in communities and society more broadly, hold significant implications for student identity. In earlier chapters we discussed university, particularly the undergraduate years straight after high school, as a time for personal growth and exploration in terms of gender and sexuality. This practice extends to other areas of marginalisation. The reason for growth and exploration of oneself and identity is often attributed to no longer having to conform to the usually rigid expectations of high schools, and sometimes the conservatism inherent in some communities that students leave to attend universities. It is the act of no longer being forced to conform for the sake of acceptance and avoiding the tolerated prejudice of these settings that leads to growth and exploration in universities. Issues around race could be no different, people could use university to explore race and culture in a free, progressive, and safe environment, but instead, it has become clear that often for students of colour in white universities, they are simply forced to conform to a different type of racial expectation (Hollinsworth et  al., 2021). Unsurprisingly, these experiences can have negative consequences for students’ wellbeing, and cause disruption to their learning, leading them to slow or stop their studies. Many of these issues could be avoided with effective university training about culturally safe and inclusive practices. These issues are evident for students from a range of marginalised identity groups, as discussed previously in this book. Just as university can be a time of discovery for many marginalised students, they often face the same confines from universities ostensibly trying to do the right thing but not succeeding. However, there is evidence of some universities being able to

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effectively take steps to understand the discrimination people are experiencing on campus environments. What we can learn about programmes like this is that there is a long way to go in making the appropriate changes, but universities making meaningful efforts towards positive policy and practice changes are a positive step forward. At the same time, many people associated with these programmes might be focused on race, or disability, or sexuality, but most involved also appreciate that what can be learnt about how a university and student and staff population respond to the needs of one marginalised group also has the potential to create knowledge that can be adapted and developed in their approaches towards inclusion for other marginalised groups (Cook-Sather et al., 2018).

Breaking Down the Barriers A new step in research surrounding race and higher education is what this actually looks like below the surface. Too often this research has been centred in whiteness, and homogenises the experiences of people who either are, or are not white. For example, we know that in the United States Black students have had the highest increase in university attendance compared to other ethnic minority groups (Barker, 2011). This is a significant shift from where the country sat only half a century ago where race-relations were concerned. Research has shown an important light on nuanced understandings of issues of racial discrimination in college admission processes. For example, Thornhill (2019) showed the ways racial discrimination was present in college admission counsellors’ responses to (or lack thereof) potential students. In England, 23% of undergraduate students are people of colour, though there are still strong inequities in outcomes and retention (Samatar et  al., 2021). Given that many universities reflect what Brunsma et  al. (2013) described as the ‘walls of whiteness’, students of colour often have white mentors, white lecturers, or white supervisors as they progress through their university studies. As Gause (2021, p. 75) noted, ‘the ranks of faculty and institutional leadership have not achieved parity with the diversification of the student population’. There are consequences this lack of representation of diverse academics in senior positions and we know this has implications for mentoring, completion rates, and subsequently students gaining the outcomes from their studies that they desire (Barker, 2011). Universities have two ways to react to these situations. The first is that they do little and might cynically suggest that statistically

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their diversity and inclusion numbers are growing. Or second, they may attempt to implement education, policies, and practices to address these gaps as best they can. Ultimately though, we know the best (and possibly) only way to solve these issues is by increasing the number of people from different racial backgrounds in teaching and leadership roles; this is a process that takes time and is fraught with other complexities that will be discussed later in the chapter. Race and higher education can also often be viewed alongside religion and wider cultural trends that outline why it can be difficult for some people to enter higher education, and succeed once there. For example, we know that university is a key factor in people from marginalised groups attaining financial independence, secure employment, long-term employment, and health and house security (Heffernan, 2022b). It is important to understand the nuanced experiences students and academics will have when encountering higher education spaces. For example, women from cultural backgrounds where education, and outside of the home or work commitments rather than family commitments, is not traditional or what is expected will face additional barriers (Al-deen, 2019). Similarly, it is important to recognise that succeeding in higher education involves far more than initial admission. From the onset of study, higher education for some students can mean a constant, and long-term relationship of negotiation, resistance, and bargaining with family members to take the steps outside of the cultural norm and pursue an education and career (Al-deen, 2019). Further exploring this, Bagguley and Hussain (2016, p.  44) explored the ways multiple identities of South Asian women influenced their negotiation of university education including ‘where to study, what subject to study, and the timing of marriage’. Pantea (2015), examining Roma women’s complex negotiations of social and family relationships in relation to their choices to attend universities, reflected on the diversity of levels of support for these decisions and ambitions. Not only do students face complex decisions and negotiations from within their personal circles, research has shown the myriad barriers that exist when they attend university. For example, for students likely to face Islamophobia either due to their religion or prejudicial attitudes towards their appearance, university study can also raise even further complications. Research continues to find that Islamophobia is for many a permanent. While violence towards these students at university is rare, threats are sadly not so rare, and microaggressions are common (Alizai, 2021).

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The complexity of race and religion has also been noted by those who simply do not meet the expectation of their culture in a university sense, or how universities have organised themselves to support certain groups. Black students who share strong connections to their faith and spirituality, for example, often find themselves in environments dedicated to the support of Black students as a single identity (McGuire, 2019). Therefore, what we can be left with are students who in terms of race are supported, and yet they find themselves somewhat alone in their educational journeys as their faith may not pair with the support structures that have been created for them. One particular issue is the potential for solutions and supports to be inappropriate in the ways they attempt to address the challenges outlined above. There is a body of critique that talks of being ‘colourblind’ when it comes to race, in which white university leaders and staff can ‘hold fast to the fiction that race has no meaning in their lives, yet remains the singlemost laudable dimension of the lives of people of color’ (Brooks-­Immel & Murray, 2017, p. 319). Such declarations may be intended to suggest that someone will not be discriminated against because of their background or identity, but in reality reflect that the barriers they face will also be ignored. As we have made clear throughout this book, two people might seem in very similar positions today as they apply for undergraduate study, postgraduate study, or doctoral research (or any other position where ‘merit’ is likely to play a role in the outcome). Yet, if one of those people is from a marginalised background, the barriers they have faced to be at a similar position are exponentially higher. Therefore, saying someone will not face any prejudice because of their marginalisation is far from the equity and inclusivity statement one might envisage it to be. Firstly, it simply pushes prejudice further behind the veil of merit. In doing so, it not only reveals that the barriers that marginalise particular students or staff will be unlikely to be addressed, it also makes clear that accordingly examinations of privilege will not be considered. Secondly, this can lead to the invisibility of prejudice. When the barriers faced by students or staff are rendered ‘unseen’, this is not equity, this is what makes them invisible on campus. The varied implications of this can be dependent on situation. This is a book about the marginalised majority in higher education. In many classrooms a majority of students will be from marginalised backgrounds and the invisibility of having marginalising factors overlooked can also lead to

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a form of marginalised solidarity. In classrooms where a marginalised majority does not exist, and worse, where people find themselves the only or one of a very small number of people from a different racial or marginalised background, they face invisibility. Invisibility of the barriers they have faced to reach the classroom, the barriers they face within the classroom, and the barriers they will face when they leave their course and begin their career. These situations have clear consequences for how people traverse through higher education, but also what they get out of it, and how they can come to understand themselves and grow as a person (Allen, 2020). Being in a scenario where people have decided the best outcome is to ignore your differences is a scenario where people are essentially being asked to be quiet while the world continues around them. This is one reason that representation is so important to students of colour in higher education settings. At its core, this is about lowering the differences in course delay, course change, and course drop-out rates between white students and students from other racial backgrounds. Ultimately, that clear differences in the above-mentioned enrolment and postgraduation rates exist between white students and students of colour is evidence that a problem based on race exists. However, addressing representation is also about showing students what is possible, why they are not alone in their pursuits, and generationally, the more representation that happens now, the more it will increase into the future (Cross & Carman, 2021). The ability to see others from your background succeed is paramount to success, as is (as much of this chapter attests) part of the importance of students finding people from their own marginalised background or similar marginalised backgrounds in university classrooms to associate with, support, and work together to successfully navigate their experiences. These needs nonetheless increase exponentially in courses that result in individual competitiveness from undergraduate, and more so for students who undertake postgraduate and research degrees. Researchers note the high levels of neoliberalism, competitiveness, and subsequent academic victory in separating oneself from others that exists in some courses and in some countries more than others. What we see here is further reason for privileged students to succeed because of the habitus, capital, and cultural trajectory they bring into their studies, but this competitiveness is also a structural, university-created reason to create cliques, keep groups small, and prevent the inclusion and success of as many people as possible. Due to centuries of university design, the ones most likely to lead the creation

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of the powerful minority and othering the rest of the class are the privileged white students who will carry this action out under the guise of merit. Since the massification of higher education, universities have ostensibly come to realise the importance of inclusion and diversity. This can be attributed in part to the significant work undertaken by academics from marginalised backgrounds, who since their inclusion in higher education settings have invested time and efforts in making change—work that has often gone unrecognised and unrewarded (see, for example, Mirza, 2006). This realisation has also accompanied the change in students and staff after more diverse cohorts were able to access higher education institutions. A first, and key, step in moving forward is not putting the onus of highlighting the need for action, or the ways forward for solutions, onto the efforts of students from marginalised racial, cultural, or ethnic backgrounds. All too often the labour for addressing racism and discriminatory practices is left to people most affected by these practices. In a university setting, we should not need someone from a minority background to highlight if anything, or what, is wrong with content or courses, or the education process itself (Linder et al., 2015). We know problems continue in universities and that these issues are far from being solved while institutionalised whiteness persists in universities (Joseph-Salisbury, 2019). It is because these problems are so clear that universities must be more proactive in addressing these issues. We also recognise here the need for nuanced policy and practice that addresses the different challenges faced by students and staff from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Through activism and research, universities have access to an abundance of knowledge about what is wrong and what needs to be done (Arday et al., 2021). If a minimum starting point for every university class was an understanding that cultural or ethnic background (as well as other intersecting aspects of students’ identities) had a major impact in the journeys student had taken to get into that class, will impact on how they operate within that class, and will impact on their outcomes from the class and their wider university studies—in most situations—these actions would put that university in a far superior position to many others (Bolitzer, 2021). The idea that people will catch up without dedicated support to address the challenges they face, or that if there are no visible issues they must not exist, is a falsehood and one that only results in furthering the advantage of already privileged students.

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University Staff and Racism The basic principles of how race and racism impact on the careers of university staff begin with largely the same issues as students. Firstly, just as universities are ostensibly white and privileged spaces for students, the same is true for staff. This factor predictably has many of the same starting negative points that students face in terms of the system, and many people within it, not appreciating, understanding, or attempting to rectify the challenges faced by people from marginalised backgrounds trying to operate in a field designed for and designed by the privileged, predominantly white, male, abled-bodied, middle and upper classes. We can also begin the discussion of what race and academia can look like from the starting position of, once again, asking universities to acknowledge that the problem exists, and regardless of how much effort has been put into these issues, they have not been solved and more work is needed (Bhopal, 2022). Every time staff members from marginalised backgrounds are forced to bring these factors to the attention of university leaders (when not part of their research) is time they are not spending on the core duties of their role that would otherwise lead to career advancement and promotion. While self-advocacy and activism are undoubtedly important, they also require significant amounts of labour that are often not expected of academics or staff members in more privileged positions. It must also be considered what this means for a group of people who have already faced numerous barriers to get where they are in a career that can be time-­ critical. As we have spoken about before in this book, a key part of academic success almost begins in the early stages of an undergraduate degree. The people who succeed early in their university experiences are the same people who, by design, are intended to do well at university, and grades and relationships aid in going on to further study. At this point, relationships and time are valuable and it is these factors that lead to employment opportunities (for example, research or teaching assistant positions), which lead to further career opportunities and ultimately potentially full-­ time employment and continuing/tenured positions. At every step this benefits privileged people, and thus, to ask the same people who face barriers to continue to call out problems and advocate for change, when universities so clearly know these problems exist, is only further disadvantaging the groups the higher education sector so often claims to value and accommodate (Bhopal & Chapman, 2019).

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One aspect that has received frequent attention is what happens when academics and staff from non-white backgrounds enter the domain of white privilege that surrounds most universities. Staff members face instances of overt and covert racism, including microaggressions and more overt racially discriminatory behaviour. These issues can range from less overt encounters with racism (see Pilkington, 2013) to structural and institutional patterns of racism such as Black and minority ethnic academics in the United Kingdom being more likely to be employed on precarious contracts (Myers, 2022). Aside from society and professional work setting changes, some researchers have also raised the point of whether this success has to do the ways people of colour navigate within white-spaces. Pechenkina and Liu (2018) found that professionally, the path of least resistance (and most likely career progression) is to operate in ways that reinforces white privilege. Partly this notion is about the transactional nature of university career advancement. A number of requirements need to be met, and the fastest way to complete those requirements is to mimic the actions of their privileged peers which depending on how far someone’s university is controlled by neoliberalism and metrics, means acting in competitive and individual ways. What it does not mean is taking on the extra labour of inclusive and diverse practices to point out, and sometimes force, universities to make changes around race and other marginalising factors that they might not want to make. This is the work that will not add to someone’s individual career progression, and often these acts of care end up becoming substantial aspects of peoples’ workloads as the people of colour or with a disability or other marginalising factor become the ones used by universities as beacons of knowledge and are obliged to sit on diversity and inclusion committees. It is also important to acknowledge how different individual people’s experiences will be. For example, skin colour and accent can cause an extreme mix of reactions and prejudices which are shaped by not only the society within which the university sits, but also more finite issues such as disciplinary area (Myers, 2022). In some areas such as STEM, extremely multi-cultural faculties are common which can make for more inclusive environments, and yet, even in this scenario, we see people essentially be ‘ranked’ due to their background and accent as some people are viewed as more likely to be more deserving of their place than others (Rita & Karides, 2021). These are the extreme complexities facing social justice researchers, and in turn universities, and solving the ingrained problems around race and marginalisation in a white-privilege sector.

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The Fight for Inclusion As repetitive as it might sound, the fight for inclusion begins with academics of colour having to battle what is essentially gaslighting from the higher education sector that would suggest that issues around race no longer exist because universities have done enough to counter the problem. This is also not a new phenomenon, two decades ago academics reported finding themselves in environments that suggested no problems existed when, in fact, many issues were present (Burke et al., 2000). Decades later, nothing has changed and academics continue to experience universities that will advertise, report, and tell people that they have removed issues of race from their institution while at the same time ignoring when researchers, academics of colour, statistics, and those focused on social justice tell them this is not the case (Doharty et al., 2021). Universities do this not so much by blatantly lying, or manufacturing a truth that suits them (though this absolutely does go on, particularly in faculties and when individual issues are raised to someone with direct accountability), but overall, universities base their success in countering racism in their institutions by basing their claim on particular sets of data which meet their needs. They base their claims on rate of inclusion at admissions, or rate of employment of academics of colour. The statistics are rarely based on the success or completion of courses, or the career progression of academics of colour (or any marginalised background for that matter) because universities know these statistics will not reflect favourably on them. Universities are also keen to report on reduced rates and reports of major incidences (which is, of course, important), but that is not to suggest that all of the issues around microaggressions and inequality in opportunity and access have been solved; of course they have not, that is why they are not being measured or spoken about (Anthym & Tuitt, 2019; Orelus, 2020). Neoliberalism and the adoption of metrics across the board in the higher education sector give universities the ability to continue carrying out what they know are policies and practices that clearly discriminate against so many of their faculty. As we have seen time and time again, using metrics as the evidence of merit, lets institutions suggest that everyone has an equal opportunity, while completely ignoring the fact that merit is a myth, and ultimately disguises the impact or life-long and institutional barriers being placed in front of marginalised students and academics (Santiago et al., 2017).

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We also know that experiences of racism in higher education are extremely different for each person, which makes developing and introducing policies and practices that protect everyone, or even a group of people, more complex. Tate and Bagguley (2017) emphasise that in working towards anti-racist universities, a one-size-fits-all approach cannot be the solution. We touched on this earlier in the chapter by examining examples of how a Black student in America would have a very different experience to someone being affected by Islamophobia. There were also the realities of different international student groups having significantly varied experiences in higher education as they faced varied perceptions of capability and fit within different disciplinary areas based on racial discriminations. These differences are almost impossible to point out because there are so many based on location, field, individual faculty compositions, etc., and we know that these complexities are compounded if someone is prejudiced towards their race in addition to other intersecting marginalised identity characteristics. We must nonetheless be conscious that racism remains a problem in academia, but that there are likely few sweeping changes that will capture all the facets of racism that will exist in the global sector (Curry, 1994). These differences can also be why high levels of diversity might not always equate to feelings of inclusion and belonging for academics. An issue we see time and time again in social justice research and exploring the realities of life in higher education for staff and students from marginalised backgrounds is the erroneous assumption that individual people can be viewed collectively. For example, as discussed in Chap. 5, if a department has five people with disabilities, that tends to be the figure concentrated on, which does not necessarily result in feelings of inclusion for the people with disabilities likely experiencing different challenges across mobility, sensory, and neuro abilities. The same is naturally true for issues around race. A diverse faculty or university is a wonderful thing that enriches a university, but it alone does little to solve issues around isolation and loneliness for those who find themselves on the fringe of inclusion (Willis et al., 2019). As we touched on the issue of race intersecting with other marginalisations above, the significance of this topic bears further discussion. This effect has been called ‘double marginalisation’ or ‘the minority of minorities’ (Stockfelt, 2018, p. 1012), and highlights that for all we have been discussing within this book, the impact for those from double, or multiple, intersecting marginalisation identities or groups is significant. These

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intersecting and overlapping levels of structural barriers can lead to increased feelings of isolation. Somewhat predictably, the impact of multiple marginalisations will be defined by location, university, or faculty as we know a significant number of societal factors help shape a university’s efforts towards diversity and inclusion, and thus what the collective impact of multiple intersecting marginalisations may be to academics’ career prospects in different institutions. As we have discussed in earlier chapters, we know that universities in conservative areas, or in institutions with religious ties, or in elite and prestigious universities, the connections between marginalisation and barriers will be great as these tend to be the settings where white privilege is the most dominant. Yet even in the most liberal and progressive of institutions, it is still the case that barriers will still need to be overcome by people who do not fit the mould. These barriers are also not being removed at a steady pace, thus, issues around race are not reducing at the same rate as those around gender, or sexuality, or disability. Instead, universities tend to make efforts in the areas where society or political pressures is currently forcing them to act (Bhopal & Henderson, 2021). Thus, there might be significant steps taken to improve issues around gender, while very little is done to address problems with racism. The decision to address specific issues means while improvements may be experienced by members of one group, many others experience little improvement, and for those marginalised through multiple intersecting identities, potentially reducing one set of prejudices does little to solve the many other barriers they face.

Extra Duties A pivotal point of understanding the effects of marginalisation in higher education is that a consequence is extra work, or additional labour. Extra work to get into a classroom as a student due to the societal barrier placed in front of them, extra work to reach equal footing in what happens inside a classroom, and having to work to catch up to privileged peers as a career is pursued. Even when a career is secured, however, little changes. For many people, after breaking through these barriers, even at great personal cost, they find the onus being placed on them to undertake emotional and hidden labour associated with care and activism for others in the academy, which is undervalued by institutions (Hanasono et al., 2019). Part of the process is a sense of social responsibility; the notion that as a member of a marginalised group, it is one’s responsibility to help others

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who do, or will, share similar experiences. This type of work nonetheless come at a personal career cost (Brissett, 2020). Privileged, white, middle-­ class peers are not expected or obliged to provide mentorship or engage in advocacy work to the same levels, so they continue carrying out the work that increases educational capital such as publications, research, and grants. It is people from marginalised backgrounds that are expected to pause the work that leads to promotion, and instead carry out the work that is not rewarded with career progress but may help pave the way for others from similar backgrounds. It also cannot be ignored that this work has to take place because of a lack of institutional support and planning. That individuals are compelled to take on these roles only occurs because of institutional and sector-wide failures to provide the diverse and inclusive environments so many universities claim to provide. In reality, that universities do not provide these settings and instead rely on people to support others is only evidence of institutions exploiting their marginalised staff as a cost-saving measure of designing and implementing policy changes (Brissett, 2020). People of colour, and those from other marginalised groups, also face many other working aspects in higher education that see them tasked with extra duties and pressure that not only make their life more difficult, but may result in slowing their career progression when compared to their privileged peers. A common theme to occur in the research is that of people from marginalised groups having extra attention placed upon them. We saw this early in relation to sexual identity with people from this group suggesting they drew higher levels of teaching/research/work scrutiny because they were, put simply, one of the few queer people in their faculty, school, or department. The same experiences are true for many academics of colour. Extra attention, extra scrutiny of performance, increased expectations of activism and engagement, being the ‘go-to’ person for all topics around race, and providing mentorship to students from non-white backgrounds (Domingo, 2017). What is telling here is that the focus is not based on performance, it is based on coming from a marginalised background within a predominantly white and privileged space. Perhaps unsurprisingly, for academics of colour (or those marginalised by any factor), regardless of whether they are performing at level, or significantly above their target expectations, having any form of faculty attention be directed to them because of their race, gender, sexual identity, disability, or fact that they have entered the middle-class world of higher education from

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working-­class beginnings; few people want their differences to be a reason to highlight their achievements or invite higher levels of surveillance in their activities (McGee & Kazembe, 2016). While this activism and additional labour being undertaken by academics may potentially be ways to help increase diversity in faculties, but we do know it is not improving equity in relation to career progression. For example, Rollock (2019, p. 4) found that in the United Kingdom, Black female professors ‘experience a messy, convoluted and protracted path to Professorship that is characterised by a lack of transparency and fairness’. The statistics relating to career advancement for academics from cultural and ethnic minority backgrounds remain alarmingly low—across the United Kingdom in 2019, there were only 85 Black professors in higher education institutions (Rollock, 2019). While the equity and inclusion work being undertaken by academics are leading to increasingly diverse and inclusive hiring—a positive outcome that would be difficult to conceive only a few years earlier (Grier & Poole, 2020)—it is nonetheless necessary to reiterate a point known many years ago which is that there is a clear distinction for academics of colour (and those from many other marginalised backgrounds) between actions that lead to increased visibility and actions that lead to equitable career opportunities (Rollock, 2021; Torres, 2006). This point remains a crucial point of this book, and the challenges universities are currently facing. On one hand, clear steps forward are being made that see people from marginalised backgrounds slowly increasing in number in higher education—which is to be applauded. However, we then see barriers erected that prevent equal opportunities for career progression, entering the professoriate, and leadership roles (if so desired). Racism still exists, microaggressions are a daily occurrence, and institutions tend to downplay the amount and impact of these actions. Therefore, while positive policies and practices have been implemented, some of the hurdles that are now preventing more equitable work environments seem much more difficult to overcome as policy and practice can only go so far if academics of colour are still being tasked with duties and subjected to different levels of career surveillance. This is also not an unknown or recent development. But where does this leave us? When faculties are now staffed with people from marginalised backgrounds, these same spaces tend to still be led by white men. This situation becomes complicated from the beginning because with the hierarchical structure of higher education, particularly at the upper

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echelons, the privileged white men who control institutions are very often also the ones who either have the option of continuing the systems of injustice, or disrupting the status quo by attempting to make real changes to make universities more inclusive. Patton and Bondi (2015) found some significant paradoxes in ally work. For example, regardless of how high someone is ranked in the university system, more often than not, their work in allyship will be dedicated to more individual, rather than institutional levels. It is difficult to know why this is, but potentially it is due to the mix of institutional changes being needed, but they are also harder to instigate, and take longer to implement, which subsequently makes efforts based on individual issues have a higher success rate. It also cannot be ignored that people in power benefit from being part of this work. Not only do they get to be seen as ‘good’ people for conducting this work, the reality for most people doing this work is that it carries very few career risks, and even fewer career sacrifices to complete the tasks; and these only decrease further the higher someone is located in the hierarchy (Patton & Bondi, 2015). Despite how much of this chapter, and book, are dedicated to people having to fight for their rights to be in classrooms and university offices, the fact that great changes could be made if leaders decided it was worth their efforts is confronting. If ally work could come with minimal risk or sacrifice (for leaders), why not do it? This question remains more difficult to answer and potentially it is one that is difficult to answer with collective response as individual reasons likely vary significantly. However, any response likely contains excuses which would be difficult to tolerate in a sector that publicly prides itself on diversity and inclusion and it is challenging not to see aspects of ‘not wanting’ to make changes, rather than being unable to make changes.

Summary The expectations and opportunities to produce the work that results in academic success or career progression are different for people of colour than those privileged students and academics experience. Bourdieu tells us why the reasons for this are clear, in a system built for privilege and that rewards privilege, every step someone must take to counter a barrier is one step that puts them behind those who did not have to encounter the barrier. Much of this chapter has also looked towards activism, and being seen as a mentor, role model, or providing representation to those following

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behind a student or academic of colour. Yet, this is work that is rarely rewarded or recognised by the university. Instead, it is yet another task that people of colour are expected to do as representatives of their culture, or they feel personally bound to carry out, that at the same time interferes with their studies or career progress. Universities will also point to the significant steps forward they have made in increasing diversity and inclusion, but it must be remembered that higher numbers of students and staff do not mean an equal existence in the institution or career outcomes. As with all marginalised groups, students of colour are likely to receive lower grades, are more likely to have interrupted study, have a lower completion rate, and if they do complete, still have a lower level of employment and salary. For academics of colour, they are more likely to be channelled into teaching and admin roles, carry out less research, have slower career progressions, and be less likely to enter the professoriate or selected for leadership roles. These are just some of the issues that must be tackled, higher numbers are a positive step, but if there are discrepancies in the outcomes then a problem still exists. There is also a large complexity to these issues that cannot be ignored. Changing systemic issues that have existed for 1000 years and were purposely included in the foundation of education settings cannot be undone easily, even from those who have actively tried. However, there are still so many smaller, easier changes that could be immediately made that would make a difference to people. For example, where a person of colour chooses to—or is asked to—take on roles relating to activism or advocacy, or focused on diversity and inclusion, then this work must be allocated in workloads and be part of promotional criteria. Any positioning of universities who do otherwise as being inclusive and welcoming places of employment reveals the often hidden costs and additional labour required of academics from marginalised cultural and ethnic backgrounds.

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Rita, N. P., & Karides, M. (2021). “I have an accent, so people know I’m not from here”: A racial and ethnic analysis of international STEM faculty in Hawai’i. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/0141987 0.2021.1981965 Rollock, N. (2019). Staying power: The career experiences and strategies of UK Black female professors. University and College Union. Rollock, N. (2021). “I would have become wallpaper had racism had its way”: Black female professors, racial battle fatigue, and strategies for surviving higher education. Peabody Journal of Education, 96(2), 206–217. Ross, F. M., Tatam, J. C., Hughes, A. L., Beacock, O. P., & McDuff, N. (2018). “The great unspoken shame of UK Higher Education”: Addressing inequalities of attainment. African Journal of Business Ethics, 12(1) https://doi. org/10.15249/12-­1-­172 Samatar, A., Madriaga, M., & McGrath, L. (2021). No love found: How female students of colour negotiate and repurpose university spaces. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 42(5–6), 717–732. https://doi.org/10.1080/0142569 2.2021.1914548 Santiago, I., Karimi, N., & Arvelo Alicea, Z. R. (2017). Neoliberalism and higher education: A collective autoethnography of brown women teaching assistants. Gender and Education, 29(1), 48–65. https://doi.org/10.4324/978135 1207874-­3 Sterzuk, A. (2015). ‘The standard remains the same’: Language standardisation, race and othering in higher education. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 36(1), 53–66. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2014.892501 Stockfelt, S. (2018). We the minority-of-minorities: A narrative inquiry of black female academics in the United Kingdom. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 39(7), 1012–1029. https://doi.org/10.1080/0142569 2.2018.1454297 Tate, S. A., & Bagguley, P. (2017). Building the anti-racist university: Next steps. Race Ethnicity and Education, 20(3), 289–299. Thornhill, T. (2019). We want black students, just not you: How white admissions counselors screen black prospective students. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 5(4), 456–470. Torres, R.  J. (2006). Being seen/being heard: Moving beyond visibility in the academy. Journal of Latinos and Education, 5(1), 65–69. https://doi. org/10.1207/s1532771xjle0501_5 Vaccaro, A. (2017). “Trying to act like racism is not there”: Women of color at a predominantly white women’s college challenging dominant ideologies by exposing racial microaggressions. NASPA Journal About Women in Higher Education, 10(3), 262–280. https://doi.org/10.1080/19407882.2017.1348303

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Willis, T. Y., Mattheis, A., Dotson, B., Brannon, L. J., Hunter, M., Moore, A., et al. (2019). “I find myself isolated and alone”: Black women’s experiences of microaggressions at an Hispanic-serving institution. Journal of Women and Gender in Higher Education, 12(2), 186–204. https://doi.org/10.108 0/19407882.2018.1545674

CHAPTER 9

Class and Higher Education

How social class impacts on higher education acceptance, success, outcomes for students, and careers for academics is an evaluation that lends itself particularly well to not only Bourdieu’s ideas, but also his experiences. This book has been about how to apply Bourdieu’s tools for understanding social and educational settings, supplying people with these tools and examples of how to assess situations, and what hidden factors might be present in a setting. In many ways, this was the basis of what Bourdieu was trying to achieve in his work, particularly regarding educational settings. As a child from a disadvantaged rural farming community in France, it was never lost on Bourdieu that people like him did not leave their community, people like him did not go to university, and people like him certainly did not become globally significant sociologists. At the same time, however, he also knew he faced barriers because of class, but he did not face barriers regarding gender, race, disability, or sexual identity. Thus, Bourdieu knew he met most of the criteria for fitting in, and excelling at, higher education as a white man (Bourdieu, 1988; Grenfell, 2014). This is not at all to downplay the impact of social class in higher education. As this chapter will attest, class can be just as isolating as any other marginalising background, it is simply an acknowledgement that Bourdieu was aware With Leanne Higham. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 T. Heffernan, The Marginalised Majority in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41432-9_9

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that in a space where people can face many barriers, he faced fewer than some others (Heffernan, 2022a). For this chapter, I have been fortunate to be joined by Leanne Higham and her expertise in understanding class, sexism, and marginalisation in education settings. As past colleagues at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, Leanne and I shared a corridor and it was so invaluable to be able to bounce ideas off of someone with such deep knowledge of the theoretical and philosophical issues at play when assessing privilege in higher education. This was so important to my thinking and growth as a researcher, as class in higher education is also a complex topic to assess because of the incredibly varied circumstances people can face. Most people would suspect that even without experience that class would play a factor in acceptance (both administratively and socially), success, and outcomes in extremely elite and privileged universities. Even away from this pinnacle of prestige, however, institutions are subject to the prejudices of their social consequences. Universities can be located in extremely privileged areas and primarily be designed to serve the privileged people of that area, or they can be in less privileged spaces and serve members of a different community. It is also important to consider that class can be impacted by much broader terms. What classism looks like in one area, or even country, compared to another can significantly alter people’s experiences. For example, England has a very well documented class system with clear implications to higher education while Australia is said to have a much less stringent class system; it has even been colloquially said that Australia ‘is a classless society’. This statement is of course not true, and can be very dangerous as it not only pushes discussions around class and implications out of view; when there’s no discussion, it is presented as something that is not an issue. With so many variables, it does make comparative studies around class difficult to conduct. Analysing two universities in the same city could result in significant differences, thus, trying to assess larger systems, areas, or countries with institutional precision is difficult. These factors have predictably been considered by the researchers of class and social justice who investigate these issues. Much like the rest of this book, this chapter aims to highlight current issues, understand why they happened, why they continue to happen, and why things are unlikely to change without significant policy intervention.

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Why Social Class Matters As with so many discussions around marginalisation and higher education that have occurred within this book, the repercussions of being from a marginalised background are not unfamiliar to those people as they enter the privileged space of higher education. Instead, they know, or at least have a strong sense of, the inequitable space they are about to enter. At the same time, however, they know the efforts to enter and succeed in this field are worth the career and life outcomes of higher salaries, higher rates of employment, and subsequently, higher levels of security when it comes to housing, food, and health (Bell, 2016; Keddie, 2012). Fitting within these spaces begins with student’s fear about making friends. Such is their clear perceptions of how success in higher education can be secured is that they knew the advantages of peer friendships and support can be a key factor in success. Yet at the same time, students from working-class backgrounds know this may be difficult as they are walking into middle and upper-class settings, and the options to build friendships (particularly with students from similar backgrounds) may be minimal. It is also not just a case of students feeling this way, we know these perceptions are correct and that students with social groups for support (both socially and academically) will do better in their studies, and thus, a clear avenue of institutional support exists in aiding the creation of these social groups (Scanlon et al., 2020). Once into the space, however, we also know that success for people from working-class backgrounds relies on how people can mobilise and exploit what capital they do have, to better position themselves in the field (Bathmaker et  al., 2013). This does not come as a surprise because Bourdieu knew every field was competitive and that people would use what capital they did have to leverage themselves higher in the field. What capitals this might be depends on the individual. For Bourdieu, this was what he leveraged to change his cultural trajectory from living in a farming community to going to university. For him, this occurred through scholarships (which themselves are highly problematic and we will soon discuss), which put him into a space that some people were entering because of wealth, privilege, and connections, but he entered due to academic skills. In the twenty-first century, what capitals may be leveraged can be dependent on location and setting. For example, the notion of working class has so often been tied to lower salaries, but this is not always the case. Some occupations that several decades ago may

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have been considered working class are now paid quite highly and certainly more than some professional, middle-class careers. Bourdieu saw the first evidence of this occurrence in his lifetime which led him to speak of the knowledge and labour classes which were not defined by money, but by occupational type—those who earned through labour activities, and those who earned by knowledge activities (Nash, 1990). While we know that the capital a child acquires through parents employed in knowledge activities is more likely to transfer to the type of capital rewarded in educational institutions, we also know that money is something that can be turned into other capitals, or as Bourdieu would tell us, economic capital can be used to buy other forms of capital (Bourdieu, 2005). This is not at all to downplay the situation, or suggest that people from different social-class backgrounds might have more avenues open to them, it is to highlight the almost infinite number of complexities and differences every single student whoever steps into a university might face. For this reason, it is also important to consider that while students will maximise the benefit of every capital they have access to, this is not a safe method of success or an opportunity for working-class students to overcome some barriers they face in a privileged university setting (Heffernan, 2020a). In fact, that some students may have access to capital that can be leveraged only further emphasises the inequalities at play (Bathmaker et al., 2013). That some students have access to these options only stands to reduce the issues in inequity due to social class, and the smaller number minimises the need, or pressure, for universities to address the situation which is why it is so important for higher education researchers to pursue these differences in educational experiences and outcomes. To return to an earlier point about what capital can be transferred into advantage, we must discuss scholarships and bursaries (and most academic prizes to enable study) as a further issue of inequity. Historically, the notion of a scholarship or bursary was to enable someone to conduct study who may not have otherwise been able to complete a programme. Thus, if someone could pay for their studies either through their own means or their family’s means, they would, and those who could not, would apply for a scholarship. Where this system went wrong is the removal of, or failure to introduce, parameters around who could and could not apply for a scholarship. As scholarships are theoretically awarded to the most deserving person, or most promising person, or person who has the most deserving project for doctoral research, etc., these awards came with a certain level of capital. As we know from Bourdieu, any

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activity that increases capital can help someone increase their position in a field (Bourdieu, 1988). Due to this factor, the capital associated with scholarships led (and continues to lead) those who do not need them to apply for them for the prestige associated with the prize (Haas & Van De Werfhorst, 2017). If we now have middle-class people, or financially stable people, applying for scholarships, we also know that this means they are more likely to be awarded such prizes than people from the working class because of the capital associated with the scholarship that the middle-class person can use to further leverage themselves in the field (Bourdieu, 1988). We therefore begin to see the unequal distribution of scholarships towards people who may not need them, but are applying for the prestige (Haas & Van De Werfhorst, 2017). Where this situation gets more complicated is in how higher education works in the twenty-first century. Free higher education is somewhat of a rarity, and in many countries where it is not free, it is getting more expensive. Thus, the number of people who could have ever ‘afforded’ higher education is much smaller than it used to be and people with significant economic capital behind them sometimes still do not have the capacity to pay for their tuition and living expenses. This then pushes the need to award scholarships to a larger group of people which includes people who several decades ago in many countries may not have been in a difficult financial situations to pay for their tuition, and leave scholarships for those without the financial capital to consider higher education. What we are left with is a situation that makes higher education study increasingly difficult for people marginalised by financial access. The scholarships and financial programmes historically designed to remove the barriers of financial access have been eroded by a system that has become so expensive even middle-class and upper-middle-class students need financial support. Additionally, the prestige associated with being awarded scholarships and bursaries further ensures that plans once implemented with equity in mind are now unequal and only serve to reinforce higher education’s privileged roots (Heffernan, 2022b). Increasing financial pressures that extend to the middle classes is a societal issue but there is a difference between historical interest and current-­ day consequences. It is of historical interest that being from the middle class does not provide the same access to higher education and ability to pay tuition via personal or family expenses that it once did. Yet, it is of current interest to note what this means in the twenty-first century because it is crucial to consider that the inability to pay for tuition does not put

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middle-class students in the same category as those from less financially secure backgrounds. These pressures were noted almost two decades ago (Moreau & Leathwood, 2006), but it is necessary to acknowledge that these issues continue, and have likely grown, in today’s universities. Most students in undergraduate studies will carry out some form of work to aid in their living expenses, but though the middle-class and working-class students both may work, they still experience different pressures. Yes, both parties need to work to live, but it is important to acknowledge that despite the cost of education, being middle class usually comes with some form of safety-net, often in the form of parents. That is not to suggest that working middle-class students are immune from financial difficulty and having to leave higher education due to financial problems, but research suggests that they do have a much larger safety net compared to people with little to no safety net (Morrison, 2010). The smaller safety net and cost of higher education is, as so often the case, clearly visible to those from less financially secure backgrounds. Statistically, researchers might know that on average a university education leads to a higher income and more stable employment (Bell, 2016; Keddie, 2012). This nonetheless does little to help the decision-making process of an individual who is not concerned about statistics, but is concerned about their own future and the information which is available to them. For this reason, people considering their education choices are at the first step put into a position of having to choose what is familiar, and what might have a higher payoff, but also a greater risk. This might mean working in industries familiar to them which might range from unskilled labour to learning a trade (which as we know might have a higher income than some university degrees). The language to describe these decisions might sound like it is referring to gambling, and that is because it is. For some, the opportunity of university study is an alternative career path away from a trade or skilled labour, but for others, it is an alternative when what they have seen occur in relation to extreme underemployment and employment never being long term or secure. Even when the decision to pursue higher education is made, this step is usually done with caution and accordingly students are more likely to enrol in courses with more clear career trajectories afterwards. Primarily this means courses in education, health, and engineering where the risk of entering higher education has a clear dividend in terms of employment. It is thus the risk of higher education that can prevent people from working-­ class backgrounds from pursuing careers in the humanities, the arts, or

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many areas of maths and sciences when a degree does not act as a direct pathway into a career (Lehmann, 2009). As with so many choices people from marginalised backgrounds make when it comes to higher education, this choice has nothing to do with academic ability or capability, and instead is entirely to do with the inability to make potentially frivolous decisions. It is a gamble, a risk, an investment to make the decisions to pursue a higher education degree in itself; the situation only gets further complicated in obtaining a degree that does not itself act as a qualification to begin a career. This decision-making process clearly directs many people from less privileged backgrounds into certain courses which itself is a type of inequity. This is an example of working-class people technically being allowed into the university, but due to all the barriers they face outside of the university, in practice they are only being able to enter certain areas that meet their needs. It is the pressures of outside the university, both pre and post a university education, that is extremely difficult to overcome without widespread social change and government support. For example, we know that tuition fee loan schemes, reduced fees, scholarships, bursaries, or even no-fee education schemes also make little difference to what people from less privileged backgrounds will study (Rosinger et al., 2019). The chance they are taking is to pursue the unfamiliar surrounds of higher education, they often do not then take an additional step and attempt to gain access to a career with unclear pathways or that are less likely to have clear employment returns. What this system does is to make sure some disciplinary areas remain the space of the privileged. One could argue that the university could do more to make these spaces more inclusive (which is undoubtedly true), but there must also be some acceptance of the current, twenty-first-­ century financial situations. When even no-fee systems cannot make some groups elect to study areas without clear career paths, and outside of the university many countries are experiencing extreme housing and cost-of-­ living increases, some degrees will likely remain unpopular choices for those pursuing safe and long-term employment options. It is also important to consider that issues are not limited to entering higher education and deciding on what to study. The complexity of being part of a privileged space for someone from a less-privileged background is substantial. One of the frustrating aspects of this scenario for researchers, let alone the students and staff marginalised by class and other factors, is that these issues have been clear to universities for decades. On one

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hand, why institutions or the sector has not reacted in always appropriate ways is because they have not had to change their policies or approaches. What changes to make and how to make them is difficult, does take time, and may take money. For many institutions, these efforts were not worth the return on investment for what was perceived to be a small group of students. Yet the marginalised majority taking shape in higher education is not a new phenomenon, researchers have been tracking it for many years (Bergerson, 2007). Accordingly, part of the problem is that universities were reluctant to implement change in the beginning, but some may argue that the problem grows increasingly complex today as the changes are rapid, and even positive and promising attempts at policy changes are not happening fast enough to keep pace with what it means to be a person from a marginalised background in higher education today.

The Student Perspective A demonstration of how complex the issue of class in higher education can be is evident by the types of issues that can occur in a classroom setting. One of the issues class in higher education can have is the wide-ranging differences in student backgrounds within the same classroom. Some students must deal with varying degrees of disadvantage, through lived experiences that include insecure housing, food insecurity, and intermittent schooling. These sorts of situations can very quickly become entirely distant in the middle-class setting of a university classroom, an accretive and unnoticed marginalising slow violence positioning working-class students even further from the middle-class norms of the classroom, and their peers (Higham, 2022). It also cannot be ignored that these levels of class disadvantage increase the likelihood of abuse and childhood trauma, which is not isolated to certain class groups, but will only further marginalise someone in a privileged university space (Field & Morgan-Klein, 2013). What class can look like can also change completely when we begin looking at research out of the world’s most prestigious universities. To begin with, let us accept the starting point that these are rarely places someone enters due to merit, these are places most people will enter because of the privilege of wealth and networks, or as Bourdieu knew, because of social and economic capital (Bourdieu, 1988). The point here is that these privileged and elite spaces are not places people enter through meritocracy, these are places of immense wealth and privilege that most people enter because their own circumstances, habitus, or cultural

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trajectory aligns them with the wealth and privilege evident in universities. While it is crucial to highlight the privilege of these spaces, in this discussion it is done so more to demonstrate how different university spaces can be. There are students entering these spaces who know they do not match the social class and privilege of a majority of their peers, not because they are from an under-privileged background, but because their lives—which might be viewed as upper-middle class in some other institutions—do not correspond with norms regarding wealth and privilege in the world’s most elite universities. This too is a real issue and continues to highlight the problems around class, and not fitting in, in higher education. It also further emphasises the point that there are almost infinite variables in what looking at class in higher education can look like. In terms of elite universities, there very much still exists an idea of what ‘is’ a student at an elite university. People may not like to admit it, but what an elite university student looks like is one from a very privileged background of a high-income upper-middle class family, and ultimately that income tends to come from professional activities. As much as this sounds like a stereotype, that is the expectation and no one should be surprised by that when legacy enrolments and enrolments influenced by networks and donations are part and parcel of elite university admissions systems. The first point to note here is that it makes anyone who does not fit this mould have problems within the system due to class. Some people may experience more problems than others, but elite universities know that anyone who does not pair with the ‘usual’ student will find it difficult to fit in socially. However, students also know this, so they tend to self-regulate their activities to avoid as many problems as possible, or until connections are made and they do fit in (Johnson et al., 2011). The more a student from a different social class experiences time in the university, it is also the case that they become more aware of the surroundings, and often, just how much the university has no interest in changing. Whether or not a student from a different social class can eventually learn to ‘fit in’ does not change the fact that it remains the student who is expected to change because most elite universities do little to alter how their classes or social experiences are not directed towards the ‘typical student’ regardless of how exclusionary such practices are to a portion of their student base (Attridge, 2021). It is also necessary to consider that these situations impact on studies and outcomes. We have talked before in this book about how academic careers are often built on relationships, and these relationships can begin

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essentially on the first day of undergraduate study. It is those whose habitus and capital match their lecturers who integrate instantly into the class, they will develop relationships more quickly, and this increases the likelihood of them pursuing, or being encouraged to pursue, an academic career. Once postgraduate study begins, it is again these relationships that lead to career opportunities either through teaching opportunities or research assistant opportunities, and later being brought on to projects as a research fellow or postdoctoral researcher (Harris et al., 2022; Heffernan, 2020b). When relationships have so much to do with success and career progression, it is the people with the instant connection that will always be ahead of those from other social groups by at least some margin—and it does not matter how small the margin is, when job opportunities are limited, even the smallest of margins will lead one person to success over another. With these factors in mind, it is relevant to note that across the board people from other social classes (regardless of university type in terms of elite, research-based, teaching-based, etc.) are put into academic learning and social situations where they will be left to catch up to the rest of the group, but as we know, they will never truly catch up, there will always be a deficit from missing out on the initial first-encounter connections (Gaston & Duschinsky, 2020). For all the differences though, collectively, we know that students from different social classes tend to have experiences that can be grouped together. For example, while we know that being marginalised by social class, combined with another factor, will have negative but unpredictable results, those marginalised only by class will have experiences generally similar, even if the nuances are very different (Croxford & Raffe, 2014). With that said, it is necessary to consider how small the circle of power is in higher education, and what the likelihood of being marginalised by only one factor is for students. Perhaps the most critical point to reiterate is that someone will be marginalised by gender; universities are spaces for men. Therefore, the only students who will experience class as the only marginalisation that impact on their studies are white, cisgendered, heterosexual, able-bodied men. Outside this quite specific group, all those people marginalised by class will also experience barriers leading up to and including their studies and outcomes relating to at least one other marginalising characteristic. For all that is being done, historically how these gaps have formed and what they mean have been a long-term form of assessment. However, even more than a decade ago we knew that for all the efforts universities were

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putting into solving these problems, the problems were morphing at a rate faster than issues were being solved (Greenbank, 2007). Add to this, extremely elitist arguments still exist even if they are attempting to be justified by varying angles. Noam Chomsky wrote of higher education as a social good, and accordingly, the return of investment of research not likely to result in comparable social change is a questionable use of funds. Therefore, if someone wants to study an area of minimal or questionable social change, this should be funded through their own means, not by the state (Chomsky, 2002). This argument was based on finances, and is decades old at this point, but what we see is justification for financial reasons, and denial of the social impact of essentially reinforcing class divide. This idea also cannot be put down to twentieth-century ideas; many similar opinions continue to exist. Albeit minimal, an argument does continue that, for example, the streaming of educational choices should exist in the humanities that would see it reserved for more privileged students through higher fees, while other students would be channelled into areas of study more likely to result in immediate employment by lower/subsidised course costs (Carver & Harrison, 2015). It is worthy of note that some governments are also acting to enforce these ideas by increasing the cost of degrees on humanities while maintaining or lowering tuition fees in areas that will lead to needed employment (such as the education and health sectors). When we hear conversations about history degrees costing the same as medical degrees, it is clear that, regardless of justification, the humanities have the potential to return to be an area that is only an option for the privileged minority. In a book that assesses these issues through a Bourdieusian lens, it is also crucial to think about the fact that Bourdieu, someone who came to significantly change the education and sociology landscape, would not have had the option to study philosophy had he been raised during a period and in a country that had some of these current approaches to university study and funding. Time and time again, the research returns to the fact that while universities have done a substantial job at removing their class barriers to admissions (remember that many barriers must already be overcome to reach the admissions stage, and many of which a university has no control over and is much more the duty of governments and society to alter), making changes to remove barriers for students is much more difficult. For so much of this chapter we have talked about how these barriers can be overcome to put students from different backgrounds as close to equal with

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their peers as possible. It is nonetheless important to consider that in the neoliberal world of the university (and some sectors are worse than others), and in some areas where competition is a fundamental aspect in getting the greatest outcomes from the class, there does exist the reality that students from working-class backgrounds (and indeed any student from a marginalised community) are students who can see barriers essentially enforced by middle-class students to prevent them from becoming competition (Bathmaker, 2021). That some students would go about this is likely shocking if you have not experienced it, but what is potentially even worse than this practice is that solutions to solve the issue are rare. In areas where competition and class rank have always existed and is often used to determine career options, students have no interest in acting equitably if it means altering their likelihood of success, and universities have little interest in changing practices when the current system arguably produces the best results (outright competition leading to increased efforts). These incidents also only further demonstrate the complexities of what goes on in a classroom as this practice exists in some areas, but not in others. Just as we discussed the consequences of elite universities, disciplinary variances in the same university can also be substantial (Crozier et al., 2008). Studies have found that differences in completion and grades for working-­class students compared to their privileged peers undertaking different courses are often based on how much the course itself aids in removing barriers, and how much of a deficit a course makes a student from a working-class background begin from as they start their studies (Crozier & Reay, 2011). Certainly, aspects of this become about pedagogy and what individual lecturers have done or could do to improve their classes, but it also furthers the discussion about how much a classroom is about competition, and what can be gained from exclusion. In earlier chapters we looked at how the arts and humanities are often viewed as safe and inclusive spaces for people regardless of gender, race, sexual identity, disability, or indeed social class, but that in the same institution there is grade and potentially career advantage to ostracising people because of their lack of privilege is difficult to contend with in terms of solutions. The common issue with these complications is that universities do not particularly want to fix the problem. In areas like business, law, finance, medicine, etc., competition, rank, and hierarchy are fundamental to the industry, and subsequently, the courses that enable entry into these professions. Thus, researchers know one of the few methods students have

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available to them is connections. Students also know this, and it does place a lot of pressure on the coincidence of enough students ‘like them’ being in a class, and them being able to find each other. Circumstances of belonging that have been created by students’ own circumstances rather than by the institution have been found to be one of the best ways of not only creating a sense of belonging, but also of support and connectedness (Bettencourt, 2021). For universities, this is also valuable because it has a higher rate of students likely feeling part of campus-culture, but it raises questions about how these connections are to be facilitated. This is a much more complex question when we know that self-made connections tend to be stronger and available to more people when they do not begin with diversity support methods that are only attended by people from these groups, and even then, many may choose not to attend. These situations also show the complexity at hand because while increased social experiences may be the answer to allow students to create connections, these experiences also have the same potential to alienate students from marginalised backgrounds from their peers in the privileged setting of higher education.

Social Class and Other Marginalisations We earlier touched on what it means to be marginalised by social class in higher education and the fact that in most circumstances, people will be marginalised by class and several other factors. This is because unless someone is a white, able-bodied, cisgendered, heterosexual man, then they will experience marginalisation by social class and at least one other factor relating to gender, race, sexual identity, or disability. It is also necessary to note that historically, for the men who found themselves aspiring to higher education but where marginalised by social class, there has been for decades methods in place to help barriers be removed to facilitate their entry and success into higher education (Moschetti & Hudley, 2008). That is not to suggest that all the barriers have been removed or that men marginalised by social class face fewer emotional or academic barriers to success than other people, but it is necessary to make clear that universities and governments have been actively trying to overcome this hurdle for men for some time. It may have started as part of post-war efforts in several countries, but it certainly continued throughout the twentieth century and into the 1980s and 1990s as methods to see men who fit the university mould in all but social-class status were aided into select careers

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such as engineering and some areas of the sciences (Forsyth, 2014). It also cannot be ignored that during much of this time, university education was either free, heavily subsidised, much cheaper, or could be attained through far less-exploitative loan schemes than many countries offer today. The largest group that will be impacted by class and an additional marginalisation are women. As women now make up a majority of students and staff across most universities (though this may be different in some disciplinary areas), for any woman from a different social class they are much more likely to face an increased number of hurdles. In these situations, we see the issues and fears more broadly associated with class in higher education (such as stepping away from comfort zones, leaving friend groups, having to fit in a place that is potentially hostile), with the negatives of being a woman in higher education which is a consideration so large it is its own area of research. In either instance what we see are two factors that result in people facing barriers that some of their peers will not face. Yet what is clear is that a set of barriers exists for people from different social classes, and a set of barriers exists for women in higher education—and very few of these barriers are the same, and even fewer can be removed through similar processes. What we are left with is circumstances that will differ from university to university, and faculty to faculty, but the impact will always be negative, the impact will always put these people behind their peers in terms of beginning, and continuing, on the journey to a university degree and graduate outcomes (Hedges & Kadi-Hanifi, 2019). The issues women from different social classes face also includes aspects from outside of the university. Like all women, women from different social classes still struggle with issues around providing child or family care, or domestic duties, while also dealing with a smaller safety net of finances to enable study. These issues become far more challenging for women from working or less privileged classes. Primarily due to finances, options for childcare are fewer, options for care assistance are rare, and the financial situations that enable study are more precarious (Fuller, 2018). At the same time, we also need to remember that a university degree is a multi-year undertaking, and the longer someone is studying, the greater their chances of stable situations altering to a point where study is no longer an option. Complications arising from gender norms and class are also not limited to women. The research around ‘masculine’ subjects such as engineering and some areas of the sciences points to people being ostracised firstly because of their class and the difficulties of not having the same

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upbringing and life experiences as their classmates and lecturers, and thus the initial difficulties in fitting in with the class. Yet these issues are also compounded (or alleviated) depending on how well someone may fit within the masculine expectations and standard behaviour of the disciplinary area. At the extreme, there is no lack of research about people from various marginalised backgrounds breaking down barriers in even the most elite university engineering faculties by being part of (or adopting) the ‘laddish’ behaviour that seems so standard in these environments (Danielsson et al., 2019). For those, regardless of gender or other marginalisation characteristics, who do not adhere to the laddish expectations, it can be a much more difficult process to become part of the class.

Steps Forward and Solutions Amongst the immense complexity of issues surrounding social class and higher education are elements where we can begin to see how some issues can be augmented—sometimes through intention, and sometimes through coincidence. In a sector where we know anyone marginalised by social class will experience barriers in their studies and outcomes, some positives have been noted that while they may not make an immediate change, they do show some paths forward (Martin, 2015). While not ideal, we know that for some people who are marginalised by social class, prolonging study by enrolling part-time actually works best for them as it allows them to better balance their studies with other obligations around work and family commitments (Delaney & Brown, 2020). This notion is in direct contrast to some aspects discussed earlier around entering a period of financial uncertainty, and hoping circumstances do not change during someone’s studies as changes can lead to lower grades or leaving classes. However, for some people, it is the fact that part-time study allows them to remain in some form of employment, or have a slightly more flexible schedule, that enables them to continue in their studies (Delaney & Brown, 2020). The complexity here, of course, is determining whether someone would be better to try and complete their studies as quickly as possible, or if they would benefit from part-time enrolment. Making this determination will be based highly on individual aspects, but it is important to consider that for some, the part-time option may be a more likely path to success. Research around part-time learning, and the larger shift to online learning, also poses some interesting aspects for students who may wish to

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study via online learning either entirely or to a larger degree. Some researchers suggest that many aspects relating to class and concerns around social class and higher education can be minimised via students enrolling in online classes. This both includes direct issues such as concerns about not fitting in and having potential barriers placed in front of student and staff relationships, but also larger worries around moving locations, the financial burden of moving, and the implication of potentially leaving employment and family (Delaney & Farren, 2016). This circumstance will only apply to a small number of people who are marginalised by social class and are primarily impacted by aspects that may be reduced via online learning options, but in many ways the consequence of COVID is that online learning is no longer a learning option on the periphery of face-to-­ face classes, and instead it is a method of learning that many universities are (at least temporarily) embracing. What online learning potentially offers some students is the chance to circumvent higher education’s lack of action on changing policy and practices to be more inclusive to students from marginalised backgrounds. We fully appreciate that it should not be a student’s responsibility to find ways to avoid the social constructs universities have not yet solved, and we have no interest in advocating this as ‘the’ solution, but as two authors from marginalised backgrounds, sometimes the best course of action is the one that at least avoids the barriers in higher education that have always existed. Avoiding these barriers is why campaigning for students to self-­advocate is a relatively popular solution that studies suggest. It is not that researchers think this should be the solution, and it should not have to be the way to remove the barriers placed in front of some students. Yet for students walking into university classrooms today, self-advocacy is the method that may result in immediate changes rather than waiting for the system to change (Finnegan & Merrill, 2017). It is easier enough for researchers to suggest students fight for their rights and for an equitable position in the classroom, but what this suggestion also does is force researchers to make clear to students what disadvantages they are facing. The purpose is to make students from marginalised backgrounds understand that they are not the odd-one out; if they feel as if they are not part of the class it is no fault of their own but it is because of structural exclusionism that has manifested over centuries of higher education’s growth as a sector. Researchers thus need to reinforce to students that they are good enough, that they do belong, that their voices must be heard, and that they can and should have the same opportunities as their privileged peers.

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These suggestions obviously will not help all students. By the very definition of what it is to come from a marginalised background, most students will enter these spaces feeling ostracised and like their voice does not deserve to be heard. It is subsequently easy enough to suggest and provide students with the information to campaign for themselves, but it can still be a very difficult task. This difficultly is why some researchers look for different methods of learning, such as online learning, but others have also looked at what scenarios are more likely to lead to successful outcomes (albeit an ever-changing set of outcomes) for students from different social class groups. While we have already discussed the notion of students from diverse backgrounds being accepted into elite universities but choosing to attend less prestigious institutions where they are likely to better ‘fit in’, similar suggestions have also been made regarding staying close to home geographically (Hurst, 2010). Students who can stay within their communities either through online learning, satellite campuses, or attending local institutions (which itself advocates for the need for universities in regional areas and outside major cities) have the potential to use community support, community knowledge, and understanding dynamics of what is happening in the university setting to better position themselves to avoid as many barriers as possible as they begin and continue their learning (Hope & Quinlan, 2021). Individually the solutions researchers have to offer regarding the barriers that remain in place for students impacted by class (and indeed many other marginalising characteristics) may appear small, but such is the difficult processes we are faced with even today, after decades of researchers trying to unpack a system designed to benefit a privileged few. A key factor at this time is to pull together as many of these solutions as possible to make the most immediate change for students as we can in the shortest time because fighting the smallest battles now will likely lead to the greatest change in the fastest time (Webb et al., 2017). Where this process becomes difficult, however, is that taking this route can reduce the focus and pressure on universities to make the structural changes that are necessary. These arguments can begin from an almost contradictory point to where this book began. This book takes the view that the inclusion of diverse students and staff into universities began in a significant way after the massification of higher education took place—in the global north, this usually meant between the 1970s and 1990s. As governments and society saw the advantage in post-school education for economic and employment reasons, the number of universities, and

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subsequently the number of university places and careers, grew significantly. This growth is also when the first steps were taken that saw people marginalised by gender, race, sexual identity, disability, or social class enter into the sector in ever-increasing numbers (Heffernan, 2022a). Some researchers, however, ask the question of whether this action was intended, or if it was a consequence of expanding middle-class opportunities (Langa Rosado & David, 2006). This is a relevant and most likely accurate point. While this book and much research points to the growing higher education sector equating to a growing diversity of the sector, higher education’s expansion has likely benefitted the expanding middle classes most of all. In an indirect way, this was the same path of thinking followed by this book and indeed Bourdieu himself. The notion that expanding higher education opened some doors for people from diverse backgrounds while opening many more doors for the middle class is akin to the process of universities opening their doors to students and staff from diverse backgrounds, and then not always removing the many other barriers people from these groups face once inside the university setting. In many ways, it is the complexity of the issues that makes that easier for universities, or the sector as a whole, to ignore. When we know that students will have entirely different experiences based on location, how far they travel from home, the type of university, the disciplinary area, and what issues impact on their studies, it is easy to see why what one student needs might be useless to another (Merrill et al., 2020). When it comes to considerations about the impact of class in higher education, like many other areas, the issue is that so often universities are looking for the smaller fix; they want to artificially remove a barrier to increase inclusion or outcomes in one scenario with no regard for making any structural changes. These changes also go beyond students looking to take their degree into the wider world. For students looking to stay on in the higher education and turn their degree into an academic career, they are to find that the temporary measures that saw some barriers removed to enable their studies have done very little to put them on an equal footing with their privileged peers as they begin to pursue academic careers (Pásztor & Wakeling, 2018). For students marginalised by social class who enter the academy as a career, the patchwork nature of inclusion and diversity becomes all too clear in how it is designed for outward facing appearances rather than internal results.

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Social Class and Working in Higher Education Staff in universities who are marginalised by social class know all too well the barriers they face, and someone does not have to be a researcher in higher education social justice or equity to know why these issues occur and what the consequences are for different people in different areas. For all of higher education’s efforts to be more inclusive and diverse, the reality is that while funding is being removed and universities are essentially forced into more corporate-like activities, and the cost of education rises at the same time, we are left with a system where universities are telling us they welcome people from diverse backgrounds while systematically making it difficult for them to accept the invitation (Schultz, 2012). This scenario has perhaps never been clearer than during the COVID pandemic and the years after. The admission of students from marginalised backgrounds dropped, their grades reduced, their failure rate increased, while their completion rates were lower than their privileged peers (Heffernan, 2022b). Bourdieu knew these situations would occur because as university study has become a more expensive undertaking, and the unforeseen circumstances of COVID made life more challenging for many from marginalised backgrounds to pursue higher education, those with the least capital would be the first to remove themselves or face challenges. In higher education career success, it is all about capital. Essentially it is a case of ‘do you have the capital required in life to gain entry into the university’, and then, ‘does the capital you have brought into your studies and career from your wider life (such as money, networks, and stable family environment) provide the capital you need to produce the work that will generate capital in a university environment such as an international research profile?’ (Bourdieu, 1988). In addition to what can be viewed as the rather transactional approaches to capital in terms of set amount of capital can be exchanged for career success, it is also the fact people from non-middle-class backgrounds also face prejudice simply for not being from the middle classes. They know they are being judged if potential language differences exist, they know it may be noted that they did not attend a prestigious school, or a school in the ‘right’ area, and they know their career may suffer if they do not have the networks to gain access to career-building activities like research assistant work, or the ability to gift the university time to be a part of these projects (Lee, 2017). In these instances, we can almost view coming from

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the wrong social class as a tax on academic careers. Regardless of capability or performance, in the current structures of higher education, coming from the wrong social class will always place barriers in front of people. It takes extra work to get around these barriers, but the people can never catch up, no matter how hard someone works, the people who have never faced any barriers will still be ahead. We again immediately see issues of representation and advocacy arise as apart of these differences. Researchers know these topics do not always get the attention they deserve (so the pressure for universities to change is decreased) because academics who are already working harder to try and keep up with their privileged peers do not have time to advocate for themselves or others when their primary duty is to keep up with the fundamental requirements of their role; for example, publish in their field, gain grants, and build a research profile. We know this means issues are being ignored, but why is it the role of people already marginalised and placed in challenging situations to spend more of their time (in a way that will not be rewarded through career progression) to campaign to fix issues that the university sector already knows exist? (Brook & Michell, 2012). We know that the issues of being from a marginalised group also manifest themselves in so many different ways, and they can also be examined from many different perspectives, which can make the issues more numerous, but also easier to understand. As wellbeing, and staff mental health, has become a topic of greater interest in recent years, and particularly since COVID began having to be considered, this has provided new ways for us to examine what impact social class can have on an academic career when someone’s background does not fit the middle-class mould. We know that inclusion matters in higher education (it is primarily what this book is about), being part of something and being welcomed rather than having to fight for a place is quite clearly an integral part of wellbeing. Yet when we look at academic careers, they also prosper on status and autonomy. There is status both in terms of academic rank (lecturer, senior lecturer, professor, etc.) and wider research profile, but also status within your workplace, or status based on networks. Some people are given more opportunities than others, and these opportunities usually relate to status (whether by ‘merit’ or by networks) which results in autonomy (Dougall et al., 2021). Autonomy is important for several reasons because on one hand, it is the result of status, but autonomy within the faculty only results in a higher status, and then an increased level of autonomy, and the circle endlessly continues. It is also critical to think about autonomy in terms of

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what we have already discussed within this book. So often people from marginalised groups speak about the extra focus on them—as the non-­ binary academic or the disabled academic, or one of the few academics of colour; people regularly talk about the extra scrutiny, micromanagement, and surveillance they receive. Therefore, it should not be a surprise that a lack of autonomy, and subsequently a lack of status, is something that many academics from non-middle-class backgrounds experience, and results in additional barriers to mental health compared to their privileged colleagues (Bailey & Strunk, 2018). Women academics from working-class backgrounds also experience further difficulties in the journey to find a place within the academy. This fact, by this point, is likely unsurprising, as we have so often discussed how issues can compound when people are part of multiple marginalised backgrounds and women are numerically the largest minority group within higher education. In an additional discussion point that will also not be surprising, researchers have been examining this very point for decades. Even as women from marginalised social classes began entering the sector in larger numbers, three decades ago researchers were reporting on issues surrounding the ostracism they faced in the academy, and the ostracism they faced in their personal lives for taking different paths in life that did not fit with the cultural trajectory of their social class (Miller & Kastberg, 1995). At this time, these women were viewed as pioneers who would set the scene and make a career in academia a more viable option for those women who came after them. On one hand this is precisely what happened as so many barriers to entering the sector have been removed or minimised, but on the other, many issues still exist because marginalised people have fought their way into institutions, but universities have done little to become more welcoming (Wilson et al., 2021). We are now over two decades into the twenty-first century and women marginalised by class are facing the same issues. They face all the barriers that exist regarding class such as leaving one social group, entering a new field, not always having the financial, family, and peer support that many others in the sector will have. At the same time, they will also be facing the barriers around financial pressures of being a woman, being paid less, being expected to provide home and family care, and being to deal with more tasks in the workplace that are not likely to lead to promotion (Hedges & Kadi-Hanifi, 2019). The list goes on and there is of course an entire chapter in this book on just this issue. These issues are not isolated to women, different versions will exist for anyone marginalised by social class and another

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factor, but if we have a sector refusing to move in a way it should, what are the options? Even the most up-to-date research points to the importance, relevance, and regularity with which one way of the most positive steps is to make sure academics who are likely to be marginalised by social class know the barriers they face. For many, this is not a surprise and they have an extremely realistic picture of the environment they are entering because they have already been students at university and seen what challenges a middle-class setting, designed for the advancement of the middle classes by the middle classes, may present. They already know that some challenges may be clear, some will be hidden, and some will be the inevitable consequences of not having mechanisms for middle-class networking and advancement in place from their first day (Jones & Maguire, 2021). Complexities do arise when people change universities or faculties due to shifting interests or interdisciplinary opportunities. This is why investigations and frank discussions about the impact of social class on higher education remain important. Many people are familiar with the repercussions because of their experiences, but the experiences and challenges present in one university may rarely reflect the challenges that may arise in a different faculty, university, or location. For all these efforts though, we also know there is a certain level of emotional labour involved in having to face the barriers, and how these barriers are met in the workplace. There is the extra labour involved in having to predict and find ways to counter the impact of working in these spaces. There is also clear evidence that for academics from other social backgrounds, if you miss out on research-focused opportunities which will regularly go to networked members of the faculty (Harris et al., 2022), the tasks you are more likely to be assigned to are administrative and student-­facing. These are tasks that do not contribute to the capital that is so often associated with career progression and promotion, but also centre around providing care for student needs and the subsequent emotional labour involved (Rickett & Morris, 2021). Which again means we see tasks, that will also be disproportionately assigned to women academics, given to academics from other social classes. It is also necessary to consider that where administrative and student-­ facing roles are concerned, thus essentially the tasks that are less likely to result in academic capital that can be transferred into career advantage, these roles do need to be completed by someone. The issue, however, is that when these roles are more likely to be carried out by women, or by

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people from non-middle-class backgrounds, thus by people from marginalised backgrounds, it is not an issue of someone having to complete these tasks, it is a very clear structural issue that these tasks are being carried out by members from certain groups—this makes the problem structural and not coincidental (Waterfield et  al., 2019). The issue is that even after decades of research and years of universities taking action and making promises, the person most likely to be assigned a task that will not contribute to their career progression is the same person who is also going to have to work harder in an effort to meet parity with their privileged peers, but it is a parity they will never reach.

Summary Fundamentally universities have not changed to make any structural differences that will better accommodate student or academics marginalised by social class. Bourdieu entered a field of higher education that he never fit into, and from the beginning he knew that he did not fit into it, but even after several decades in these spaces, he discovered that the more he fit into university spaces, the less he fit within his working-class community (Bourdieu, 1988). These are the complexities people from other social classes who are not entering an equitable higher education space. They might be entering a welcoming space, but it is not equitable. Students and academics from other social classes must face all of the risks before they even enter the university that involve choosing a different path: leaving families, leaving communities, leaving friends. Leaving a path that will be familiar on the promise that trying to navigate a path forward in unfamiliar surrounds with unfamiliar people will result in opportunities that may not be worth it otherwise. Yet this is a risk. There is a risk to leaving what is familiar and there is a risk to trying something new. It is unknown and the consequences of being ostracised from two communities; but these are the risks people make in an effort to move forward. With these immense pressures, students and academics then enter a world that is inherently middle class. Many gates might be removed and people may be welcomed into the space, but this space remains a largely inequitable space that will be guided by personal experiences. We know some people may enter these spaces and be welcomed and face few challenges due to their social background, but more likely, there will be challenges. Challenges disguised by the application of merit, made more

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difficult by networks, and subtly channel people towards work that does not result in career progression, entering the professoriate, or being selected for leadership roles. The disappointing part is that there has been significant improvement, particularly in recent years, but the gaps are still large. As we have seen, the points researchers were making 30 years ago are so often the same they are making today. We have seen barriers be decreased in size or moved out of the way, but we have not seen them be removed. The circle of power in higher education remains one dominated by the privileged few, until we see marginalised people force their way into these positions, barriers being temporarily moved out of the way, might be the best answer the sector wishes to offer most people.

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Hurst, A. (2010). The burden of academic success: Managing working-class identities in college. Lexington Books. Johnson, S. E., Richeson, J. A., & Finkel, E. J. (2011). Middle class and marginal? Socioeconomic status, stigma, and self-regulation at an elite university. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(5), 838. https://doi. org/10.1037/a0021956 Jones, L., & Maguire, M. (2021). Investing ourselves: The role of space and place in being a working-class female academic. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 42(1), 45–59. https://doi.org/10.1080/0159630 6.2020.1767937 Keddie, A. (2012). Education for diversity and social justice. Routledge. Langa Rosado, D., & David, M. E. (2006). ‘A massive university or a university for the masses?’ Continuity and change in higher education in Spain and England. Journal of Education Policy, 21(03), 343–365. https://doi. org/10.1080/02680930600600630 Lee, E. M. (2017). “Where people like me don’t belong”: Faculty members from low-socioeconomic-status backgrounds. Sociology of Education, 90(3), 197–212. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038040717710495 Lehmann, W. (2009). University as vocational education: Working-class students’ expectations for university. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 30(2), 137–149. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425690802700164 Martin, G. L. (2015). “Tightly wound rubber bands”: Exploring the college experiences of low-income, first-generation White students. Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, 52(3), 275–286. https://doi.org/10.108 0/19496591.2015.1035384 Merrill, B., Finnegan, F., O’Neill, J., & Revers, S. (2020). ‘When it comes to what employers are looking for, I don’t think I’m it for a lot of them’: Class and capitals in, and after, higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 45(1), 163–175. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2019.1570492 Miller, D. G., & Kastberg, S. M. (1995). Of blue collars and ivory towers: Women from blue-collar backgrounds in higher education. Roeper Review, 18(1), 27–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/02783199509553693 Moreau, M.  P., & Leathwood, C. (2006). Balancing paid work and studies: Working (-class) students in higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 31(1), 23–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075070500340135 Morrison, A. (2010). ‘I want an education’: Two case studies of working-class ambition and ambivalence in further and higher education. Research in ­Post-­Compulsory Education, 15(1), 67–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/135967 40903565376 Moschetti, R., & Hudley, C. (2008). Measuring social capital among first-­ generation and non-first-generation, working-class, White males. Journal of College Admission, 198, 25–30.

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Nash, R. (1990). Bourdieu on education and social and cultural reproduction. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 11(4), 431–447. https://doi. org/10.1080/0142569900110405 Pásztor, A., & Wakeling, P. (2018). All PhDs are equal but … Institutional and social stratification in access to the doctorate. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 39(7), 982–997. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2018.1434407 Rickett, B., & Morris, A. (2021). ‘Mopping up tears in the academy’ – Working-­ class academics, belonging, and the necessity for emotional labour in UK academia. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 42(1), 87–101. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2020.1834952 Rosinger, K. O., Belasco, A. S., & Hearn, J. C. (2019). A boost for the middle class: An evaluation of no-loan policies and elite private college enrollment. The Journal of Higher Education, 90(1), 27–55. https://doi.org/10.108 0/00221546.2018.1484222 Scanlon, M., Leahy, P., Jenkinson, H., & Powell, F. (2020). ‘My biggest fear was whether or not I would make friends’: Working-class students’ reflections on their transition to university in Ireland. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 44(6), 753–765. https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877x.2019. 1597030 Schultz, D. (2012). Blue-collar teaching in a white-collar university. Journal of Public Affairs Education, 18(1), 67–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/1523680 3.2012.12001672 Waterfield, B., Beagan, B. L., & Mohamed, T. (2019). “You always remain slightly an outsider”: Workplace experiences of academics from working-class or impoverished backgrounds. Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie, 56(3), 368–388. https://doi.org/10.1111/cars.12257 Webb, S., Burke, P.  J., Nichols, S., Roberts, S., Stahl, G., Threadgold, S., & Wilkinson, J. (2017). Thinking with and beyond Bourdieu in widening higher education participation. Studies in Continuing Education, 39(2), 138–160. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351028424-­3 Wilson, A., Reay, D., Morrin, K., & Abrahams, J. (2021). ‘The still-moving position’ of the ‘working-class’ feminist academic: Dealing with disloyalty, dislocation and discomfort. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 42(1), 30–44. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2020.1767936

CHAPTER 10

Conclusion

What I hope has become clear from this book is that universities are not as closed off to people from marginalised groups as they once were. Certainly, there was a time when anyone who did not meet the privileged mould of being male, white, middle class, heterosexual, and able-bodied attending or working at a university was unheard of in most instances (Heffernan, 2022). Things have slowly changed over the last 150 years, and more so in the last few decades, to a point where the university sector has opened many of the once closed gates to students and staff from marginalised backgrounds (Scobey, 2016). As I have noted many times in this book, this is a major step forwards and is a step to be celebrated because even 10 or 20 years ago, in the early twenty-first century, some gates were opening, while many others remained firmly shut. Nonetheless it is crucial to note that institutions welcoming more people from marginalised backgrounds into their classrooms, corridors, and offices are akin to universities allowing marginalised people to enter these privileged spaces. The power structures of universities have rarely changed. People from marginalised backgrounds may have been welcomed, celebrated, and tend to feature heavily in marketing material—but they remain kept at arm’s length from leadership, influence, and enacting systemic change. We rarely see institutions making systemic changes to wholly integrate people from different backgrounds into universities, or the professoriate, or leadership roles. In more recent times, nothing has made this

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clearer than after the COVID pandemic began. It was marginalised students whose enrolments slowed, grades dropped, course completions reduced, and postgraduation job opportunities dropped at a greater rate than their peers (Heffernan, 2022). In classrooms, we also know that it is marginalised academics most likely to fill the administrative roles, the teaching roles, and the tasks that dedicated time to students and other tasks that take them away from the research-based tasks that are so often what lead to publications, grants, a research profile, and promotion (Heffernan, 2020). Bourdieu could never have predicted the global pandemic of 2020 and beyond, but I dare say he could have solidly predicted what the fallout would be from institutions facing lower funding, lower student numbers, and having to make financial cuts (Blackmore, 2020). Bourdieu gave sociologists a set of concepts, a way to think about society, fields, and what goes on inside them to demonstrate that success is often pre-determined. It is not about who works hardest, or who is the best, in education, it is often about who faces the least number of obstacles and closed gates. In many ways, Bourdieu was giving a voice to people who often had some idea of the barriers that stood in their way; even if others did not. In recent times, researchers know that people from marginalised groups are aware of the difficulties they will face even in situations they have not yet encountered. For example, disabled people know they are walking into a situation that will contain barriers, and the barriers will impact on their abilities to excel at their studies as a student or career as a university employee (Moola, 2015). A path forward for disabled people (or anyone from any marginalised group) is difficult to picture. However, what has become clear from research is that often even the most basic of support measures are still not in place which makes other assistances less useful when the initial step into the institution is often flawed. Disabled people need to know what services exist; too often we see reports of universities offering a whole host of support services, but at the same time making it the duty of the disabled person to research and seek out these opportunities which only increases the workload and pressure on the disabled person (Anderson et al., 2019). Yet we do know that when disabled students and staff engage with these services early and are able to start successful dialogues with support staff with experience and knowledge of disabled peoples’ needs, the disabled student or staff member has a much higher chance of success (Dong & Lucas, 2016).

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The notion of feeling like an outsider was a driving force in Bourdieu’s work as he considered people entering settings that were not traditionally for them. This speaks volumes to what goes on in higher education because we know that universities may be taking steps to increase the inclusion and diversity of their campuses, but we are nonetheless talking about making changes to an educational concept that is 1000 years old and rooted in male privilege. Thus, it cannot be of that much of a surprise that the success of making those who were once not allowed into these spaces feel welcomed is not always as great as some people might like to believe. When examining the literature for Chap. 6 in this book, Kate Smithers and I repeatedly noted the findings that women, the numerically greatest number of marginalised people in the academy, continue to so often be made to feel like outsiders in the classrooms, and even when they perform better than their male counterparts, the institution still has a way of making them feel inadequate (Stentiford, 2019). For women academics, the path into the academy is lined with barriers that their male counterparts do not face, and women are less represented in the professoriate and leadership roles (Woodfield, 2019). The difficult part to accept here is that we are continuing through the twenty-first century and yet we have known about these issues for decades, and for decades universities have been resistant to any form of systemic change. Universities appear eager to provide some solutions to overcome or temporarily remove some of the problems, but rarely do these changes involve systemic changes that will permanently remove the barriers. Part of these problems are also compounded by the fact that universities will declare they are doing something, and will highlight their policies, commitments, and initiatives, but we still do not have equity. This is the problem with university leadership so quickly turning to corporate lines and political spin. The assessments and discussions are carried out in a way that downplays the problem and magnifies what is being done. My chapter with James Burford around sexual identity in the academy begins from a very basic standpoint that people marginalised by their sexuality have existed in the academy since the beginning of these institutions being formed (Clawson, 2014). For centuries however, people have been forced to hide who they were. For the same reasons as we have seen when discussing other marginalising factors in higher education, researchers are suggesting universities make changes in institutions intentionally designed to be exclusionary and promote the success of a very select group of people (Miller & Downey, 2020). We also see the changes universities are

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making, and even the suggestions for change that many researchers are campaigning for, have to rely on policy and practice changes which, as we know, does not in any timely manner result in systemic changes. Nonetheless, as the chapter made clear, in many instances the attempts universities are making are not enough. When people are reporting increased surveillance, an expectation that they carry out activist work, and be the ones to lead support for students in similar situations, this is both evidence that what has been implemented is not working or is not enough, and it sees some people tasked with extra work (Bailey & Strunk, 2018). This work is important, this work might make a difference to peoples’ lives, but it is also work that is rarely recognised by the university and will not lead to the capital that leads to promotion. The notion of marginalised people not starting from an equal point was also evident in the chapter with Rafaan Daliri-Ngametua regarding issues of race, and cultural and ethnic diversity in higher education. There is never an equal starting point for a person of colour, or any marginalised person, in academia (Oropeza et al., 2010; Sterzuk, 2015). Even if there appears to be a similar starting point at the beginning as the journey of learning for students, or career for academics, begins—the expectations and opportunities to produce the work that results in academic success or career progression are different for people of colour than those privileged students and academics experience (Dingel & Sage, 2021). Bourdieu tells us why the reasons for this are clear. This circumstance is predictable and repeats. In a system built for the privileged, and that rewards the privileged, every step someone must take to counter a barrier is one step that puts them further behind those who did not have to encounter the barrier. Finally, the impact of social class in higher education (and particularly when someone is from the working class or labouring class) was explored with Leanne Higham and once again demonstrated how every time someone does not fit the traditional mould of a university student or employee, they face hurdles others will not experience (Bathmaker, 2021). People not from the middle classes know they are being judged if potential language differences exist, they know they did not attend the right school, and they know their career may suffer if they do not have the networks to gain access to career-building activities like research assistant work, or the ability to gift the university time to be a part of these projects (Lee, 2017). The reasons someone can find themselves marginalised from their privileged peers in higher education can be incredibly complex and the reasons, and implications, can be far reaching and difficult to comprehend.

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This book acknowledges that fact. This book used five chapters about the primary marginalising factors in education to look at the basic issues people from these backgrounds face. The first point to note is that there are many more reasons someone might find themselves marginalised from their peers, and many identities within the groups that we have discussed. Furthermore, why someone is marginalised in one setting may not have the same impact in a different faculty, institution, or university; it may be improved, or it may be worse. These aspects are also covered by researchers who specialise in these areas. A significant body of journal articles and books have been written about the topics I have covered in these chapters with my co-authors, which offer critically important insights in depth, while we attempted to tie these various disciplines and areas of interest together in accessible ways. While I may have called upon the expertise and life experiences of people who have been in higher education as students and staff and experienced the challenges of being a marginalised person in a privileged world, this book is still nonetheless about what we, collectively as marginalised people, can demonstrate to the still-privileged world of the academy. The previous five chapters may have looked at the nuances of what being marginalised can mean, but Bourdieu knew that overall, the implications would be similar because people who do not fit the mould, do not have the habitus, the capital, or the cultural trajectory will face the same hurdles. What Bourdieu suggested decades ago (Bourdieu, 1988; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977) and is as evident today as it was then, is that entering a university from a marginalised background means you will pay a tax from the opportunity to enter a space you would have once been excluded from—and it is a tax people who fit the mould will not pay, will not appreciate the consequences of, and may not even realise exists. Regardless of capability or performance, in the current structures of higher education, coming from a marginalised background places barriers in front of people (Thomson, 2017). It takes extra work to get around these barriers, and the cost of that time and that effort will never be made up in a competitive environment like higher education where, in many ways, time is one of the key currencies to transfer into networks and research, the factors that so often lead to academic success, employment, and promotion. If we know this is the case, where does this leave us in terms of the position of marginalised people in the higher education sector? To begin with, we should accept that for most people the sector is a more welcoming place today than it was even a decade ago, let alone three, four, or five

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decades ago. However, this book is testament to the fact that there is still a long way for universities to go. There was perhaps a time when the greatest hope of marginalised people in the academy would be that the people who control the university might take it upon themselves to improve things, and things have improved, but the fact remains that the circle of power is still not entirely committed to see inclusion grow when the task becomes more difficult. The approach to support services during COVID made that clear. The new path moving forward though is that there is a difficult opportunity ahead. Marginalised people are the majority now, and though we may not be in the circle of power, our numbers and influence are growing. The interesting dichotomy here is that to push into the circle of power will take effort, and as this book has discussed, this effort is so often the extra work that will not contribute to research or promotion, but it is the collective push of people that are making changes (Brissett, 2020). Even in my time in universities, which is not even a decade, I have seen great strides forward. When I started in universities, diversity and inclusion committees were small meetings of people with no real influence or power. Today, diversity and inclusion committees at many universities are substantial bodies of power who have representatives in university senates and governor meetings and increasingly their voice cannot be ignored or put into the ‘too hard’ basket. What we know is that the road ahead is difficult, but we are making progress and in many ways the setbacks of COVID have only made the path forward more stable and there is proof that solutions based around funding are not always the solution when systemic changes can be made. If the future is looking brighter for marginalised academics and students as we move forward, it is prudent to consider what the final endgame is for marginalised people in higher education. Bourdieu knew marginalised people would always be behind in higher education, but I doubt he pictured the marginalised majority becoming the dominant group in universities, and even if it takes decades more, eventually making their way into the circle of power. Year on year, I am certain that the gaps between marginalised people and their privileged peers will decrease in higher education, and some of these gaps will decrease faster than others, but I concede that it is not until the circle of power is led by marginalised people that the biggest steps forward towards equity will be made. There is a certain level of irony that for most universities who profess to be places of equity and inclusion today, that this declaration will not actually be true until such

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times as those making the decision and who can implement systemic change are in power. Yet we must also be honest about the power a university has. As has been demonstrated in this book, universities are not isolated places, they are entities existing in a new world where managerialism and corporatism is growing. Even today, there are many instances where we know what would increase inclusion, but it does not happen because of the money involved. Even if marginalised people enter the circle of power, we must be prepared for what happens if the money to carry out what needs doing does not exist. This will also impact on different faculties and universities; some are richer than others and the opportunity for more inclusive practices will be greater. Universities are also only part of the community. Again, in this book we have seen examples of universities in conservative areas not always following the liberal mantra that is usually aligned with higher education. Universities may be places that can provide an education and teach tolerance and understanding, but they nonetheless sit in communities which may not feel the same way (Forbes, 2020). What is clear though is that marginalised people are not going anywhere, and if I had to predict, I would say with confidence that our presence in higher education will only grow. In the near future, it is the role of those who feel they can hold those in power to account, and in the future, it will be our role to be the people in power and ensure that higher education is a place open and accessible to everyone who wishes to attend.

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Bourdieu, P. (1988). Homo academicus (P. Collier, Trans.). Polity. Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J.  C. (1977). Reproduction in society, education and culture (R. Nice, Trans.). Sage. Brissett, N. (2020). Inequitable rewards: Experiences of faculty of color mentoring students of color. Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 28(5), 556–577. https://doi.org/10.1080/13611267.2020.1859327 Clawson, J. (2014). Coming out of the campus closet: The emerging visibility of queer students at the University of Florida, 1970–1982. Educational Studies, 50(3), 209–230. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131946.2014.907162 Dingel, M.  J., & Sage, S.  K. (2021). Habitus congruence and college student experiences in social, academic, and racial domains. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/0951839 8.2021.1885072 Dong, S., & Lucas, M. (2016). An analysis of disability, academic performance, and seeking support in one university setting. Career Development and Transition for Exceptional Individuals, 39(1), 47–56. https://doi. org/10.1177/2165143413475658 Forbes, T. D. (2020). Queer-free majors?: LGBTQ+ college students’ accounts of chilly and warm academic disciplines. Journal of LGBT Youth, 1–20. https:// doi.org/10.1080/19361653.2020.1813673 Heffernan, T. (2020). There’s no career in academia without networks’: Academic networks and career trajectory. Higher Education Research and Development. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2020.1799948 Heffernan, T. (2022). Forty years of social justice research in Australasia: Examining equity in inequitable settings. Higher Education Research and Development, 41(1), 48–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2021. 2011152 Lee, E. M. (2017). “Where people like me don’t belong”: Faculty members from low-socioeconomic-status backgrounds. Sociology of Education, 90(3), 197–212. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038040717710495 Miller, R.  A., & Downey, M. (2020). Examining the STEM climate for queer students with disabilities. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, 33(2), 169–181. Moola, F. (2015). The road to the ivory tower: The learning experiences of students with disabilities at the University of Manitoba. Qualitative Research in Education, 4(1), 45–70. https://doi.org/10.4471/qre.2015.56 Oropeza, M. V., Varghese, M. M., & Kanno, Y. (2010). Linguistic minority students in higher education: Using, resisting, and negotiating multiple labels. Equity & Excellence in Education, 43(2), 216–231. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 10665681003666304

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Index

A Administration, 6, 8, 20, 47, 53, 70, 71, 90, 98–100, 112, 113, 139, 144, 155, 182 Advertising, 31, 90, 181 Apparent, 24, 108, 111–115, 124, 169 B Background, 2, 3, 7, 29, 32, 34, 45, 57, 61, 66, 70, 71, 80, 86, 88, 99–101, 123, 130, 131, 137, 161, 162, 164, 165, 168, 180–182, 186–193, 195, 196, 198, 205, 207, 208, 210–213, 215–217, 219–227, 233, 237 Barrier, 6, 35, 44, 46, 64, 73, 83–86, 106–117, 119–121, 123–125, 129–132, 137, 138, 140, 143, 145, 148, 156, 159, 161, 165, 178–182, 185–190, 192, 194, 196, 197, 205, 208, 209, 211, 214–226, 228, 234–237

Bourdieu, 6, 9, 10, 13–36, 41–48, 50–52, 54, 56, 58–61, 63–67, 69, 72–76, 80, 85, 86, 91, 95–98, 106, 110, 115, 119, 123, 130, 131, 134, 137–139, 142, 143, 146, 159, 161, 163, 168, 177, 178, 180, 182, 197, 205, 207–209, 212, 215, 222, 223, 227, 234–238 Bursary, 208 C Capability, 52, 83, 113, 120, 133, 138, 182, 193, 211, 224, 237 Capital, 6, 9, 16, 19, 20, 28, 35, 41, 43–46, 48–55, 57–65, 67–69, 71–73, 75, 76, 81, 82, 84–86, 95, 98, 115, 119, 134, 142, 188, 195, 207–209, 214, 223, 226, 236, 237 Care, 6, 7, 9, 27, 57, 97, 133, 137, 145, 171, 191, 194, 218, 225, 226

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INDEX

Casual, 49, 54, 96, 140 Children, 2, 6, 27, 28, 44, 73, 82, 84, 86, 91, 97, 133, 134, 136, 141 Choice, 25, 28, 33–36, 54, 55, 95, 120, 122, 123, 129, 131, 141, 144, 160, 166, 169, 186, 210, 211, 215 Circle of power, 28, 55, 59, 80, 97, 130, 156, 172, 214, 228, 238, 239 Class, 2–6, 9, 13, 15, 28, 32, 44–47, 49, 58, 66, 82, 86, 95, 96, 105, 109, 116, 120, 122, 131–133, 135–137, 142, 144, 156, 158, 161, 164, 165, 167, 179, 182, 183, 189, 195, 205–227, 236 Closed gate, 6, 45, 66, 76, 106, 233, 234 Community college, 31, 88, 182 Conservative, 163, 165, 170, 180, 194, 239 Contract, 46, 54, 70, 94–96, 140, 191 Corporate, 8, 10, 31, 68, 99, 143, 149, 223, 235 Coursework, 136, 139, 141, 182 COVID, 4, 37, 53, 54, 56, 92, 93, 99–101, 105, 122–123, 143, 180, 220, 223, 224, 234, 238 Cultural capital, 28, 60, 61, 64, 65, 75, 130

E Economic capital, 20, 46, 59, 60, 63–65, 75, 84, 96, 208, 209, 212 Education, 1–4, 6–10, 13–22, 24, 27–37, 41–44, 46–48, 50, 53, 56–58, 60–66, 68, 69, 71, 73–76, 79, 80, 82–93, 95, 96, 99, 101, 105, 107, 109, 111–114, 116–120, 122–124, 129–135, 137–146, 148, 155–158, 161, 166–168, 172, 177–182, 185–190, 192–196, 198, 205–215, 217–228, 234–239 Educational theory, 18–19 Elite, 2, 34–36, 43, 45, 47, 62–64, 88, 90, 92, 121, 166, 194, 206, 212–214, 216, 219, 221 Employment, 3, 6, 8, 28, 31, 36, 47, 50, 54, 57, 59, 60, 62, 65, 67, 71, 75, 84, 87–89, 91, 94–98, 100, 101, 106, 107, 131, 140, 145, 156, 170, 186, 190–192, 198, 207, 208, 210, 211, 215, 219–221, 237 Engineering, 131, 135, 210, 218 Equity, 3, 5, 24, 33, 36, 37, 41, 71, 76, 79, 80, 106, 110, 113, 118, 122–124, 130, 133, 140, 145–147, 149, 162, 172, 187, 196, 209, 223, 235, 238

D Dean, 5, 7, 8, 49, 52, 55, 69 Department, 51, 52, 55, 116, 117, 120, 147, 193, 195 Disability, 2, 3, 5, 9, 15, 20, 32, 85, 97, 105–120, 123, 124, 148, 149, 156, 157, 165, 167–169, 182, 185, 191, 193–195, 205, 216, 217, 222 Disclosure, 105, 112, 115, 116, 118, 119, 124, 125, 163, 166, 169

F Faculty, 5, 7, 8, 13, 30, 48–57, 62, 66–68, 71, 72, 99–101, 105–107, 110, 111, 114, 117, 124, 130, 139, 141, 157, 158, 182, 185, 191–196, 218, 219, 224, 226, 237, 239 Family, 6, 15, 27, 28, 34, 44, 45, 60, 61, 63, 64, 74, 75, 81, 82, 84–87, 90, 91, 97, 98, 133–135, 137, 139–145, 160, 162, 168,

 INDEX 

170, 180, 186, 208, 209, 213, 218–220, 223, 225, 227 Fee, 4, 211, 215 Field, 2, 3, 7, 9, 10, 16, 19, 23, 28, 29, 32, 41, 43, 47–52, 54, 55, 58, 59, 62, 64–67, 69–74, 76, 84, 89, 93–96, 98, 106, 109, 110, 119–121, 123, 135, 138, 141, 143, 178, 179, 182, 190, 193, 207, 209, 212, 224, 225, 227, 234 Funding, 4, 6, 8–10, 17, 19, 28, 31, 49, 52, 53, 55–57, 72, 92, 93, 99, 106, 143, 144, 178, 181, 215, 223, 234, 238 G Gender, 3, 5–7, 9, 15, 20, 32, 33, 79, 85, 96, 109, 129, 131, 133, 135–138, 140–142, 144–146, 149, 156, 157, 160, 162–164, 166–169, 177, 184, 194, 195, 205, 214, 216–218, 222 Government, 5, 9, 17, 20, 24, 31, 44, 56, 57, 61, 72, 75, 81, 87, 88, 90–93, 99, 100, 105, 106, 122, 162, 181, 211, 215, 217, 221 Grade, 3, 5, 6, 29, 34, 47, 63, 74, 107, 134, 168, 179, 190, 198, 216, 219, 223, 234 Grant, 34, 46, 49, 53, 54, 56, 62, 65, 67–69, 72, 92, 95, 98, 139, 143, 144, 168, 195, 224, 234 H Habitus, 16, 19, 28, 41–48, 50, 58, 60, 62, 73, 76, 82, 85, 86, 95, 96, 119, 131, 163, 178, 180, 188, 212, 214, 237

245

Hierarchy, 5, 28, 36, 49, 51, 52, 55, 57–61, 71, 75, 93, 145, 197, 216 Humanities, 17, 24, 56, 82, 110, 131, 158, 210, 215, 216 I Identity, 119–121, 155–162, 166, 169–171, 180, 184, 186, 187, 189, 193, 194, 237 Invisible, 19, 108, 111, 115, 116, 130, 169, 187 J Justice, 10, 146–148, 161, 179, 191–193, 206, 223 K Knowledge, 1, 14, 16, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 26, 28, 33, 44, 47, 61, 63, 87, 107, 120, 121, 124, 130, 141, 155, 162, 169, 170, 182, 185, 189, 191, 206, 208, 221, 234 L Labour, 28, 83, 87, 135, 183, 189–191, 194, 196, 198, 208, 210, 226 Laundering, 64, 74 Leadership, 3, 4, 8, 35, 36, 49, 53, 71, 75, 79, 80, 98, 99, 112, 145, 148, 168, 172, 185, 196, 198, 228, 233, 235 Lecturer, 5, 49, 54, 99, 183, 224 Liberal, 30, 31, 142, 160, 163, 170, 172, 194, 239

246 

INDEX

M Management, 3, 53, 55, 75, 100 Marginalised, 1–4, 6–10, 14–17, 20, 29, 30, 33, 36, 37, 41, 58, 61, 63, 66, 69–71, 76, 79, 80, 84–86, 88, 91, 92, 95–101, 105–111, 121, 123, 124, 129, 130, 132, 137–141, 144, 146, 148, 155–157, 159, 161, 163–166, 168–171, 177, 179–182, 184, 186–190, 192–196, 198, 207, 209, 211, 214, 216, 217, 219–228, 233–239 Maths, 7, 28, 82, 135, 211 Merit, 6, 9, 18, 27, 28, 35, 36, 63–65, 67, 68, 73, 75, 146, 148, 168, 182, 183, 187, 189, 192, 212, 224, 227 Method, 2, 14, 18, 25–27, 33, 57, 63, 67, 110, 117, 123, 124, 133, 143, 147, 162, 164, 165, 178, 208, 216, 217, 220, 221 Middle-class, 5–9, 19, 34, 41, 44–47, 58, 66, 67, 69, 71, 73–75, 83, 86, 91, 95, 96, 98, 101, 106, 109, 130, 131, 134, 139, 156, 167, 195, 208, 209, 212, 213, 216, 222–224, 226, 227, 233, 236 Minority, 33, 80, 97, 120, 121, 124, 130, 131, 145, 178, 185, 189, 191, 193, 196, 215, 225 O Oblates, 30, 33 Online, 2, 122–123, 219–221 Othering, 189 Outsider, 29, 68, 80, 120, 136, 137, 148, 149, 235

P Parents, 19, 28, 43–45, 47, 63, 74, 97, 135, 208, 210 Power, 4, 7, 8, 14, 15, 25–27, 31–34, 36, 55, 56, 63, 64, 80, 101, 121, 130, 138, 147, 156, 161, 166, 178, 183, 197, 233, 238, 239 Precarious, 54, 94, 96, 98, 131, 191, 218 Privilege, 2–10, 13–16, 26, 27, 29, 31–37, 43, 44, 46, 47, 53, 64, 68–71, 73–76, 79–83, 88, 91, 95, 96, 98, 99, 107, 129–131, 134, 137, 138, 146, 159, 164, 166, 168, 169, 178, 180–183, 187–191, 194, 195, 197, 206, 207, 209, 211–213, 215–218, 220–225, 227, 228, 233, 235–238 Professoriate, 3, 36, 71, 79, 80, 98, 99, 144, 145, 148, 168, 196, 198, 228, 233, 235 Publications, 8, 21, 23, 32, 49, 54, 62, 65–68, 72, 95, 98, 109, 139, 195, 234 Q Qualifications, 65, 82, 88 Queer, 156, 195 R Race, 2, 5, 7, 9, 15, 20, 32, 85, 109, 156, 167, 177–179, 181–188, 190–195, 205, 216, 217, 222, 236

 INDEX 

Racism, 20, 177, 179, 181, 183, 184, 189–194, 196 Rankings, 56, 57, 89 Regional universities, 4, 57, 62 Representation, 30, 146, 157, 168, 170, 171, 185, 188, 197, 224 Reproduction, 51, 65–68, 70 Research, 1–3, 5, 6, 8, 16, 19, 20, 22–24, 31, 34–36, 46, 49, 51–55, 57, 62, 63, 65–72, 85, 87, 92, 93, 95, 97–100, 105–107, 109, 110, 113–116, 118–122, 124, 129, 131, 133, 136–148, 155, 157, 158, 161, 164, 165, 168, 169, 171, 179, 183, 185–190, 193, 195, 198, 208, 210, 212, 214, 215, 218, 219, 222–224, 226, 227, 234, 236–238 Research assistant, 52, 66, 69, 93, 95, 98, 214, 223, 236 Research-focused, 34, 35, 62, 65, 71, 143, 226 S Safety, 159–161, 164, 210, 218 Scholarships, 19, 29, 47, 207–209, 211 Science, 7, 18, 26, 56, 82, 88, 95, 131, 135, 211, 218 Sexual identity, 3, 5, 7, 9, 20, 32, 85, 109, 155–162, 164–167, 169, 171, 195, 205, 216, 217, 222, 235 Sexuality, 159–171, 177, 184, 185, 194, 235 Social capital, 20, 60, 63–65, 67, 73–75, 86, 91, 95, 115, 119, 138, 142, 161, 178, 180, 182 Social science, 20, 23–26, 43, 56

247

Social settings, 13, 14, 17, 27, 42, 43, 48, 59, 183 Sports field, 48 Support, 1–5, 7, 16, 28, 30, 31, 35, 43, 45, 47, 53, 57, 71, 74, 85, 89, 90, 92, 93, 97, 99–101, 106–108, 110, 112–115, 117–120, 123–125, 134, 140–142, 156, 157, 159, 160, 164, 171, 178, 183, 186–189, 195, 207, 209, 211, 217, 221, 225, 234, 236, 238 T Teaching, 3–6, 8, 18, 34, 35, 49, 51–55, 62, 66, 69–71, 90, 93, 95, 97–99, 116, 139, 140, 143–145, 147, 186, 190, 195, 198, 214, 234 Teaching-focused, 34, 35, 52, 54, 62, 145 Teach-only, 144, 145 Thinking tools, 23, 76 Trades, 91, 131, 210 Trajectory, 9, 10, 13, 17, 20, 25–29, 34, 35, 43–45, 47, 50, 54, 60, 62, 64, 73, 80–83, 85, 87, 89, 91, 95, 99, 119, 131, 134, 138, 142, 163, 168, 178–180, 182, 188, 207, 210, 213, 225, 237 Tuition, 4, 47, 53, 57, 84–87, 92, 209, 211, 215 U Upper-class, 82, 85, 138, 159, 190, 207

248 

INDEX

V Visible, 8, 10, 30, 31, 108, 112, 114, 115, 147, 162, 165, 166, 169, 189, 210, 220, 221, 234, 238 W Website, 2, 3, 7, 56, 79, 84, 147, 178

Working-class, 34, 45, 46, 96, 196, 207, 209–212, 216, 225, 227, 236 Work/life, 139, 145 Workload, 35, 53, 70, 141, 144, 145, 191, 198, 234 World War, 16, 83, 86–100, 106