Working Class Female Students' Experiences of Higher Education

Reviews / Votes

"A fascinating insight into the internal conversations animating working-class women's varied experiences of pursuing, sustaining and benefitting from higher education. This highly accomplished study, with its robust methodology, excellent grounding in the historical and social context of higher education in the UK, and its incisive analysis of rich body of qualitative data will be of vital interest to scholars of education, sociology and gender alike. Those working in higher education settings will also find much here to illuminate the challenges faced by many of our students and prompt informed consideration of how we might best support our students in navigating them."
- Dr Jane McDonnell , Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.

"Working-class Female Students' Experiences of Higher Education: identities, choices and emotions, by Sam Shields is an interesting, engaging read that explores the identities ofworking-class women and their experiences with university. Sam's descriptions of these experiences are empathetic and enlightening, and provide insights into challenges faced by students from working-class families as they decided to attend university, figure out how to apply and finance this decision, and balance their life responsibilities with study. The findings from this work are worthy of consideration by any provider that is seeking to recruit and support 'wider-participating' students in ways that are most meaningful to those students." - Dr Megan Kelly Murray , University of Hull, UK.