The Class Politics of Foundation Years

About the February Forum

Presented by: Dr Sarah Hale MEd, SFHEA

In recent years, particularly since the decline of part-time, evening and open-access provision, foundation years have become a significant route into higher education for people from working class backgrounds. We know from decades of research that working class students face a range of obstacles and challenges at university. Sarah Hale’s research explored how foundation year practitioners perceive and frame these, and considered the implications that this might have for working class inclusion in higher education.

About the Presenter

Sarah Hale began her first degree, in Politics, as a twenty-nine year old single parent, and has spent most of her career working with mature, part-time, and ‘non-traditional’ students. In 2012, after five years in the Faculty of Lifelong Learning at Birkbeck, she joined the University of Sheffield’s Institute for Lifelong Learning – shortly before it, too, ceased to offer evening and open-access provision. Since 2014 she has been Programme Director for the University of Sheffield’s integrated foundation years, which prepare students without Level 3 qualifications for forty different degree programmes.

Find out more about Dr Sarah Hale at the University of Sheffield website.

About Vaughan Open Research Forum

Vaughan Open Research Forum is series of talks, workshops and interactive sessions which are open to anyone who is curious and wants to find out more.

Themes for sessions relate to our core teaching topics, arts, humanities, social sciences and counselling, and also discuss adult education and co-operative issues. The Vaughan Open Research Forums take place on the second Thursday of the month.

Registration

Due to social distancing measures, this session will take place via video conference. Please register below.

The video conference will run from 6 pm – 7:30 pm. Details will be sent on the day via Eventbrite to people who have registered.