From Foundation degree to Bachelor degree: exploring the identity construction of part-time women students within one vocationally focused higher education institution

Largan, Claire Elizabeth (2016). From Foundation degree to Bachelor degree: exploring the identity construction of part-time women students within one vocationally focused higher education institution. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

This thesis explores the experiences of women who study on a part-time Foundation degree and transition on to part-time Bachelor level study. Using Foucault’s construct of governmentality, it investigates how external and internal forms of power through discourse influence the development of academic and personal identities.

Data collection involved a questionnaire given to all internally progressing students followed by two stages of in-depth interviews involving five women. The first interview involved the use of images to support the creation of narratives. The second interview reviewed these narratives and considered transitional experiences. Finally, two focus groups held one year apart offered collective transitional accounts.

What emerged were ways in which the women in this study responded to personal and relational forms of power through discourse. Resilience was revealed as a personal form of resistance to power that when linked to motives for study, interdependent learning and the internal progression the women experienced on to the Bachelor degree underpinned the development of strong academic and personal identities. These identities meant the women in this study considered themselves as personally and academically transformed through their experiences of studying on the Foundation degree and their subsequent transition on to Bachelor level study.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):