Aim Higher? Considering the emotional cost of aiming higher for marginalised, mature, mothers re-entering education Dawn Mannay Cardiff University

Presentation Outline Contextualising the Presentation Research Overview Introducing Caroline - Legitimate Motherhood Introducing Emma - Border Crossing Concluding Remarks Questions

Contextualising Aimhigher (Moore and Dunworth 2011) What works? Student retention and success (Crosling et al 2008; Thomas and Jamieson-Ball 2011) Complex and differentiated representations of working-class lives Informed as opposed to ignorant policy decisions

PhD Methodology Research Site Participants Position of the researcher Three methods of visual data production Possible Selves Narratives Auteur Theory Psychosocial and narrative approaches

3 Research Questions PLACE - How does the immediate location feature in and mediate women’s educational, family, relationships and employment histories (mothers) and futures (daughters)? SOCIAL REPRODUCTION - To what extent do inter- generational (e.g. mother’s and daughter’s) narratives of their educational experiences, employment histories, social networks, relationship cultures and gendered identities converge and diverge? GENDER - In what ways do interpersonal relations, broader social networks and institutional cultures and practices intersect and operate to regulate women’s educational, social and employment opportunities and orientations?

Introducing Caroline Background Academic History The three Cs Working-class upward social mobility Gender, class and identity Legitimate motherhood

Housework - ‘it’s not too bad with these irons they got now’

Legitimate Motherhood Cleanliness - respectable working-class femininity (Evans 2006) Idealised Welsh working-class femininity (Aaron 1991) Investing identity in the domestic sphere and the ideology of cleanliness Moral presentation of the self (May 2008)

Being a selfish Mum Ideal notion of ‘new motherhood’ (May 2008) Domestic sphere Fulfilment of children’s emotional needs Ability to provide financially for the family ‘I hate that nuniversity I wish you never started that nuniversity’ Capacity to care (Holloway 2006)

Full Circle Transgressing the social and moral identities bound up with gender and classed specific parenting Two years of part-time Access Two years of full-time study at a post university ‘Dirty work of neo-liberalism’ (Herod and Aguiar 2006)

Introducing Emma ‘Hystryd born and bread’ Where I am its just horrible, I don’t think you’d like to live there Low-paid unqualified posts Insecurity and long periods of unemployment For the children

Education – a process of separation

‘I got to let go of my family’ Emma: D’you know what I mean it’s weird it’s like I’m not even there no more I’m, I don’t know, it’s just weird, like I’m totally in a different place to them

Grief and Loss Emma: I think there was a bit of jealousy see at the start of me joining college …yeah it was like I don’t know it ah, it’s weird right saying this, but the first couple of months, I think there was like a bit of grief you know what I mean (laughs) …it was like grief, like I lost something

Border crosser Southerton (2002) living at the interface ‘Fix, to stabilise the identity of a particular place’ (Massey 1994) Psychological consequences of spatial positioning of ‘border crosser’ (Lucey et al 2003) Willingness to exist in this borderland (Mannay 2009) Education is ‘not for the likes of us’

Summary Living in a marginalised space guides our understandings of who we are and simultaneously who we are not (Sutton 2009) Understanding barriers at the affective level Psychological difficulties faced by non- traditional students ‘Fit’ with official categories to access support Successfully ‘Aimhigher’?

References Aaron, T. Rees, S. Betts and M. Vincentelli Our Sisters’ land: the changing identities of women in Wales. Cardiff: University of Wales PressHolloway, W. (2006) The capacity to care: gender and ethical subjectivity. London: Routledge. Lucey, H., Melody, J. and Walkerdine, V. (2003). Uneasy hybrids: psychological aspects of becoming educationally successful for working-class young women. Gender and education, 15 (3), Mannay, D Making the familiar strange: Can visual research methods render the familiar setting more perceptible? Qualitative Research, 10 (1), Mannay, D Postgraduate Café Papers 2009: Balancing on the boundary between two discursively different worlds: a mother and daughter case study exploring space, place, class and identity. Working Paper 126, Cardiff School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University pp May, V On being a good mother: the moral presentation of the self in written life stories. Sociology, 42 (3), Moore, J. and Dunworth, F Review of evidence from Aimhigher Area Partnerships of the impact of Aimhigher. Manchester: Aim Higher Research Network. Thomas, L. and Jamieson-Ball, C Engaging students to improve student retention and success in higher education in Wales. York: Higher Education Academy.