Maintaining criticality: Attempts to stop an unacceptable proportion of students from feeling alienated

Many authors have drawn attention to the difficulty in defining student engagement (see for example Bryson, 2014; Dunne, 2016; and Trowler, 2010). This difficulty is deepened by national differences that Buckley (2014) highlights, describing how in the UK, student engagement is used to refer to issues of governance as well as pedagogy, whereas in the USA the term tends to focus more specifically on pedagogy. Trowler (2010) drawing on the work of others highlights the behavioural, emotional and cognitive aspects of engagement, while Bryson emphasises the importance of acknowledging the differences between engaging students (what institutions do to engage students) and students engaging (what students do to engage). Anyone exploring student engagement, faces the challenge of articulating the focus of engagement: for example, defining what is being engaged with (e.g. learning processes, learning design, online/classroom based learning, extra-curricular activities, institutional governance, see Trowler, 2010) and whether student engagement is seen as a pre-condition/influence, a process or an outcome (see for example Kahu, 2013 for a helpful ‘conceptual framework of engagement, antecedents and consequences’). Student engagement is a multifaceted concept that overlaps with related constructs and factors such as student partnership and student motivation, as demonstrated in Dunne’s (2016) recent list of the diverse ways in which student engagement activities are currently described in higher education and thus explaining the usefulness of a ‘jargon buster’ (Hancock, this volume) in some settings.

The work contained in this volume that reflects the work of the REACT Project is focused on engaging hard to reach students. To add to the complexity of defining student engagement, many of the authors in this volume report the difficulties faced in defining ‘hard to reach’ students. Sims et al (this volume) outline a common range of student groups often considered to be ‘hard to reach’, including: part time; commuters; first generation; international; men; black and minority ethnic; mature; and those with learning difficulties. However, several authors in this volume raise concerns that ‘hard to reach’ is a term that implies students are responsible in some way for being difficult or different and it is therefore their fault that they are disengaged in learning or in university life. Questioning the use of the term ‘hard to reach’ highlights that it may be staff and higher education institutions that actively disengage students by not responding to the diversity of student voices effectively. Our understanding of this more critical perspective can be enhanced further by looking at the seminal work of Sarah Mann on student alienation. Mann’s work, highlights seven ways in which students are often alienated within and by higher education – outlined briefly here.