Towards Social Justice for Student-Parents: Learning from lived experiences to address social injustice for undergraduate students with parental responsibility in the UK

Abstract

Over the past two decades, students with parental responsibility have been encouraged into university by successive governments’ Widening Participation (WP) and Lifelong Learning agendas but have been consistently let down by a failure on behalf of institutions and policy makers to provide appropriate support for this cohort once they arrive at university. As such, student-parents have been unable to participate in their education on an equal footing with their non-WP peers, and in being expected to adapt to systems and expectations neither designed for nor accommodating of their needs, they have experienced a socially unjust higher education journey. This commentary introduces two research projects which produced original insight into the lived experiences of undergraduate student-parents in the UK and presents nine publications emanating from these projects, with a view to testing the following overriding thesis: ‘A socially just higher education experience for student-parents can be facilitated by gaining a rich insight into their lived experiences and from this, developing mechanisms to respond to their needs.’ The commentary explores the originality of the publications, evaluates their contribution to the literature and to the student-parents’ agenda, and presents two new models to address social injustice for student-parents. The influence, impact, and policy and practice implications of the work presented are considered, and evidence is put forward to demonstrate that the work presented has facilitated, and will continue to facilitate, the journey towards social justice for undergraduate student-parents in the UK and beyond. The commentary concludes with a consideration of my personal and professional journey in undertaking a PhD by Published Works and evaluates the extent to which this doctoral route is a facilitator of social justice for pracademics in a higher education context.