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Theorists of friendship in contemporary society have suggested that our relationships with peers are characterised by their emphasis on openness, disclosure and emotional communication. Moreover, Beck and Beck-Gernsheim argue that friendship, as a deliberately sought, trusting partnership between two people, can play an important role in countering some of the negative consequences of a market-driven society, "acting as a shared lifeline to take the weight of each other's confusions and weaknesses". However, drawing on a series of in-depth interviews with students from nine different higher education institutions, this paper will argue that such theorists overlook significant complexity in the ways in which young adults choose to "order" their friendships. Indeed, it will suggest that highly individualised and ruthlessly competitive approaches to academic study can be maintained alongside more socially cooperative relationships with friends and peers, played out in non-academic arenas. The paper will discuss the implications of this for both sociological theorising about friendship, and policy and practice within the higher education sector. (Contains 2 notes.) [The research on which this paper is based was funded by the Society for Research in Higher Education.]

This paper examines the spread of English as a medium of higher education in the Arab world, addressing questions about the relationship between higher education, language shift and cultural (re)production through such post-colonial educational bilingualism. Drawing on exploratory ethnographic research, it documents how both Arabic and English have been implicated in the reconfiguring of collective identities through mass higher education in one Arab Gulf country against a context of rapid modernisation with a regional undercurrent of recurrent pan-Arab and Islamist-tinged nationalism. It examines how far the resulting linguistic-cultural dualism amounts to a loss of linguistic-cultural diversity, and how far there is a linguistically-framed discourse of resistance to such a process. Theoretically, the paper engages with discourses relating to socio-cultural reproduction, collective identity, educational standardisation, change and cultural chauvinism, and markets. It offers insights into the potential for both language and higher education to act as tools or fields for cultural transformation and for resistance identity construction.

The author expresses concern that love of knowledge, which he views as the most valuable resource in universities, is not taken seriously by the academic press. This article considers what is to be done about it; and discusses how collegiality, based upon a celebration of intellectual love, might restore, or create, integrity within the academic community. Noting that employers consider passion, integrity, enthusiasm, openness and scholarly values to be important outcomes of higher education, Rowland avers that such terms imply love of knowledge, and argues that without the opportunity to express their shared love of knowledge, academic staff are likely to feel isolated from their community, which they experience as fragmented, unsupportive, and non-collaborative; and that the collegium and collegiality may become indistinguishable from the corporation and corporate identity.

This paper examines the organization and representation of time in certain kinds of undergraduate programs, here represented by a sociology program in a US university. Written requirements for the major are analyzed as constituting a 'chart' that defines academic time in terms of units of before-after relationships. The paper shows how students 'reuse' these temporal units when charting paths through the university and reckoning their academic work to specific futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on case-study data collected from undergraduate students taking courses in social theory. The paper sets out an approach to Sociology as a discipline that promotes an understanding of moral categories. Drawing on the work of Bernstein, Benhabib and Hird, a model of 'generalised' and 'concrete other' provides a framework for understanding the discipline of Sociology and its pedagogy. A case study of student experience reveals the complexity of the 'concrete other' and how a more personalised and social interventionist account can be developed through Hird's concept of 'inner diversity'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been argued that male and female undergraduates adopt different, gendered writing styles. This paper discusses findings from a project that examined this issue, and explores lecturers' perceptions of gender and undergraduate writing. It shows that, in the case of 'second-class' awarded essays, a majority of academics were unable to correctly identify the authors gender. Applying analysis of discourse to the explanations of academics concerning their attempts at gender identification, we found that narratives used by academics tended to support discourses of gender difference, particularly in terms of ability. These various narratives, and the resulting constructions of male and female students, are discussed. It is argued that the narratives position male and female students in stereotypical ways, with implications for their power positions. We conclude that while it is important that gendered trends around undergraduate writing are recognised and addressed, the stereotyping of students according to gender must be avoided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ongoing 'rationalisation' of tertiary education in Australia is symptomatic, it is argued here, of the deeper tensions inherent in corporate capitalism. This paper examines one aspect of the rationalisation process-amalgamation-based on research carried out at two amalgamated colleges, with the aim of 'demystifying' the rhetoric of 'efficiency and effectiveness' underpinning current managerialist approaches to education. The impact of amalgamation on college life-increased bureaucratisation and centralisation of power harnessed to a form of `entrepreneurial zeal', resulting in administrative inefficiencies and increasing staff alienation-may be partly explained, it is suggested, by the contradictions and limitations of the ideological/economistic parameters within which the amalgamation policy was conceived, namely the `Razor Gang' proposals of the former Liberal government This in turn, it is suggested, reflects something of the interrelationship between education policy, the 'fiscal crisis' of capitalism, and the 'legitimation crisis' of the State. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Widening participation' and increasing student diversity are currently key concerns across the higher education sector, and particular attention has been drawn to the persistent under-representation of working-class students within British universities. It is thought that widening participation in higher education (HE) can result in a number of social and economic benefits, at a national level, for under-represented social groups and for individual participants. Less is known about the viewpoints and understandings of working-class non-participants, such as whether 'official' perceptions regarding the value of HE are shared or contested. Focus group discussions were conducted with 109 non-participant Londoners, aged between 16 and 30 years, from a range of working-class backgrounds. Findings focus upon non-participants' constructions of risks, costs and benefits during application, participation and graduation. These perceptions of 'value' are discussed with relation to widening participation strategies amongst ethnically diverse 'working class' groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the perceptions held by mature students on an Access to Higher Education programme at an inner-city college as to the social, cultural and economic significance of the qualifications they hoped to gain. Emphasising the critical potential of the students' voices, this ethnography depicts them mining their biographies in order to neutralise the educational site and imbue their Access projects with value sufficient to sustain them in taking the fraught step of returning to education. The voices of the group are saturated by tensions deriving from theft experiences as disaffected workers on the peripheries of the labour market and their investment in further and higher education as the preferred means by which to escape social marginalisation and welfare dependence. Their motives and aspirations reveal a lived critique of the iconic notions of widening participation and social ex/inclusion in which contemporary post-compulsory education rhetoric is embedded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For undergraduate students, the act of essay writing involves not only the struggle to understand and critically engage with a particular area of knowledge, but also the struggle to successfully utilise the language that must be used in order to communicate this engagement. Based on interviews with final-year undergraduates from four different universities, this article focuses on the difficulties students face in acquiring the language necessary to present their opinions and ideas in essays, and the effects of the unequal power relationship between student and lecturer on the presentation of the student 'voice'. Students not only struggle due to lack of clear guidance in the 'rules of the game' of academic writing, but a significant number also hold back from presenting their views or opinions, through lack of confidence or through a belief that lectures will penalise views with which they do not agree. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]