‘Day students’ in Higher Education: widening access students and successful transitions to university life
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Date
2005Author
Christie, Hazel
Munro, Moira
Wager, Fiona
Metadata
Abstract
This article explores the experiences of widening access students at two prestigious
Universities in Scotland. It is based on interview data collected from a small sample of young
and mature students who had all attended a widening access course prior to coming to
University. The analysis centres on the students’ construction of themselves as ‘day
students’, who live at home and combine studying with commitments to family or to paid
employment. While they see being day students as a pragmatic response to their financial and
material circumstances, it is argued that this disadvantages the students within the University
system both through their limited ability to participate in the wider social aspects of student
life and through their exclusion from networks through which important information
circulates.