Search

Research on inequality in higher education (HE) is often dominated by class-based assumptions about traditional and non-traditional students. This binary distinction emphasising students' socio-economic status tends to oversimplify the complexity of educational inequality, neglecting crucial factors which affect the perception of social position. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the understanding of inequalities in HE with new data on the meaning of locality, using evidence from comparative studies of institutions. Locality is interpreted as an inclusive concept capturing place identity as well as local attachments based on language, culture and the natural environment. The qualitative and quantitative data were collected from 192 participants in three distinctly different HE institutions, which were deliberately selected according to their socio-economic, cultural, and institutional status. This mixed methods research confirms the importance of different types of belonging at institutional, local and national levels, and their different effects on student groups. The study captures to what extent geographical mobility is associated with social class, by examining students' sense of belonging and their interpretation of locality in universities across Wales. It challenges the notion of disadvantaged background, and poses a critical question about cultural and geographical familiarity. This study therefore enriches the current debates about the impact of social inequality alongside social class on students' belonging, success and retention in HE.

This study aims to explore the main aspects of sense of belonging, including academic and social engagement, life satisfaction, thoughts of leaving university, demographic characteristics and socio-economic status by applying quantitative measurement. Having considered the concepts of disadvantaged or non-traditional groups deployed in previous studies, a survey questionnaire was designed to investigate how certain factors are related to students' belonging. Statistical analysis of data from 380 participants reveals that students' sense of belonging and retention are crucially influenced by both academic engagement and social engagement, but independently. This study also addresses a lack of research about how the critical factors for disadvantage operate to determine belonging and retention in higher education. The findings should prompt a re-evaluation what we consider to be the sources of 'disadvantage', such as social class, age and ethnicity.

Students' sense of belonging is known to be strongly associated with academic achievement and a successful life at university. To achieve a comprehensive understanding of belonging, this study collected data via the 10 Words Question. Responses from 426 participants were analysed using a sequence of analytic methods including In Vivo coding, systematic coding, clustering, and contingency analysis. The results show that, in addition to academic and social engagement, there are two additional domains of belonging which are often neglected: surroundings and personal space. Surroundings equate to participants' living space, and geographical and cultural location, while personal spaces refer to life satisfaction, life attitudes, identity and personal interests. Both positive and negative data demonstrate the complex and multi-dimensional character of belonging in higher education. The study concludes that policies for student engagement in higher education should reflect all four domains to support the full range of students' experiences.

Examines post-Soviet Russian journalists' perceptions of their role and how it is changing. Distinction between 'information' and 'presentation'; Ethos among younger journalists; Orientations towards audiences; Ways in which various forms of regulation, ownership and economic organization are shaping journalism in the Russian federation.

This article presents a comparative analysis of the sources of variation in news vocabulary. One of the salient themes of research into the language of the contemporary mass media has allegedly been the theme of bias or systematic distortion in news reports. Such a theme is seen as part of a larger enterprise designed to test how far the news media, which are bound by legal or conventional requirements to be impartial in matters of social controversy, diverge from the standards which are set. The research strategy for answering such a question is to take examples of events which are quite clearly matters of controversy or events which attract a range of competing interpretations and to see whether the same variety is present in the reporting of such events. Conflicts between capital and labor, between political parties, between ethnic groups, and between deviants and law enforcers have allegedly received detailed attention in communications research. Findings tend to show that where there is close public scrutiny and where the criteria of balance or impartiality are defined there is more or less scrupulous attention to such matters, at least at the surface level of who is allowed to speak.