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‘Possible Selves’ in practice: how students at Further Education Colleges in England conceptualise university

Jones, Steven; Hord�sy, Rita; Mittelmeier, Jenna; Quyoum, Aunam; McCaldin, Tamsin

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Authors

Steven Jones

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Dr RITA HORDOSY RITA.HORDOSY@NOTTINGHAM.AC.UK
Assistant Professor in Education

Jenna Mittelmeier

Aunam Quyoum

Tamsin McCaldin



Abstract

© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This paper reports on a project in the North of England that looks at the college-to-university decision-making processes of non-traditional students through the conceptual lens of ‘Possible Selves’, as initially developed by Markus and Nurius (1986) and applied to higher education by Harrison (2018), Henderson (2019) and others. Our data involves in-depth interviews with young people, and with the college staff responsible for advising and guiding them, at Further Education Colleges from which the rate of transition to university is lower than the national average. Our findings show that young people talk about their ‘like-to-be’ and ‘like-to-avoid’ futures in complex and self-regulated ways, often moderating how they articulate aspiration to align with external discourses, such as those projected by college staff. Students also demonstrate a keen awareness of structural limits, effectively constructing future selves which, though ‘elaborated’, reflect counter-reading of dominant narratives around financial self-improvement as achieved via the ‘full’ university experience. The ‘Possible Selves’ approach is therefore found to be enabling as a mediating artefact for researchers, and valuable for identifying policy-relevant points of tension between students and their college staff.

Citation

Jones, S., Hordósy, R., Mittelmeier, J., Quyoum, A., & McCaldin, T. (2022). ‘Possible Selves’ in practice: how students at Further Education Colleges in England conceptualise university. Research Papers in Education, 37(6), 757-772. https://doi.org/10.1080/02671522.2020.1864765

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 8, 2020
Online Publication Date Jan 18, 2021
Publication Date 2022
Deposit Date Feb 15, 2021
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Research Papers in Education
Print ISSN 0267-1522
Electronic ISSN 1470-1146
Publisher Routledge
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 37
Issue 6
Pages 757-772
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/02671522.2020.1864765
Keywords Education
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5247341
Publisher URL https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02671522.2020.1864765
Additional Information This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Research Papers in Education on 18.1.21 available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/02671522.2020.1864765