Description:
Winner of the 2024 Higher Education Special Interest Group best book award.
EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
Amid debates about the future of both higher education and Europeanisation, this book is the first full-length exploration of how Europe's 35 million students are understood by key social actors across different nations.
The various chapters compare and contrast conceptualisations in six nations, held by policymakers, higher education staff, media and students themselves. With an emphasis on students' lived experiences, the authors provide new perspectives about how students are understood, and the extent to which European higher education is homogenising. They explore various prominent constructions of students - including as citizens, enthusiastic learners, future workers and objects of criticism.
Brief description: Achala Gupta is Lecturer in Sociology of Education at Southampton Education School.
Review Quotes:
"A compelling and original account of how students from across Europe think of their experience and themselves, and where this diverges from policy and media narratives." Jennie Bristow, Canterbury Christ Church University
"Based on rich empirical work, this book reminds us about the importance of nuances in the picture of students. Challenging stereotypes, it emphasises that how we talk about students matters." Lars Ulriksen, University of Copenhagen