Choices, Decisions and Transitions: The politics, practices and possibilities of understanding transition as becoming.

Dr Carol Taylor

Jean Harris-Evans

Department of Education, Childhood and Inclusion

This presentation

• We want to unsettle established or ‘commonsense’ notions of transition as induction or development

• Propose the concept of transition as becoming

• Present some empirical data from two transitions projects

• Use some ‘tools for thinking’ from Deleuze and Guattari (1987) and Cavarero (2000) to theorise transition as becoming

• Think about the implications of this for transition practices

• Consider some implications for research practice

Transition: activities and practices

• Course information days

• Accommodation

• Clearing open event

• E Countdown campaign

• Fresher's week

• Course Induction week

• Society fairs

• Library tours

• Academic tutorial system

Transition: practices and norms

• Linearity

• Temporal logic

• Time bounded

• One off

• Institution ↔ Student

• Student engagement: ‘fitting in’ vs student voice

Student Transitions and Experiences Project (STEP)

VIDEOSSTORYBOARDS AUDIO TEXTSPOEMS NARRATIVES

DIARIES

BIOGRAPHICAL INTERVIEWS: REFLECTIVE AND REFLEXIVE

Higher Education Transitions Project (HET)

This project is designed to investigate Education Studies students’ perceptions and accounts of their decision-making processes in relation to university activities and strategies for conversion to full-time undergraduate study.

recruitment marketing

students’ perceptionsinfluences on students

decision and choice-making processes

T1, T2, T3 Gale & Parker (2012: 5)

Rethinking transition as Becoming

• ‘All concepts are connected to problems without which they would have no meaning and which can themselves only be isolated or understood as their solution emerges’ (1991: 16)

• Concepts are themselves emerging events which enable us to think of new possibilities

• Stagoll (2005: 50) ‘A concept is created or thought anew in relation to every particular event, insight, experience or problem, thereby incorporating a notion of the contingency of the circumstance of each event’

• Concepts we are interested in: – Rhizome, Assemblage, Becoming

Selina's Narrative

• Yeah, it was horrible and like my dad lives in Wolverhampton now and so going there was a bit more like I might get to see my dad a bit more often, so that was quite where I was wanting to go with that, but then when I went to the open day I was like “I am not going here”, but then I applied for the course, because the course sounded quite good, so I applied for the course anyway and then I went to [university]s open day and the course sounded really good, but like the accommodation wasn't very good and I didn’t really like the idea of staying at home. I didn’t really want to do that but the accommodation was horrible. Yeah, it was horrible, and I applied for [university] and I went to their open day and I really liked it there. Yeah, because my boyfriend goes to [university] so I kind of knew quite well the area and things like that and so that was one of my options. And I didn’t come to [university’s] open day because at first it wasn’t really, or I hadn’t really thought about it as an option. I had just kind of put it on my UCAS form because I needed to fill it, I just put it on because I had never been to Sheffield before but I kind of knew of it. ermm, and I just, yeah, I just read the bits on the website and stuff and I kind of put it on because I needed to fill my spaces. And then after I had applied I looked in to it more and realised that I liked it more than I thought I had. And then I came to the post invite day … And when I came then, that is when I really found out that I liked it.

Rhizome

• Quotes from data x 3 and more explanation of concept

FAMILYSTUDENT

EMOTIONS JOURNEYADVICE

PLACES

Becoming: And, and, and

I nearly, nearly – and they wouldn’t let me and I was so glad – changed courses after the first couple of weeks, because just initial workload and … we used to get a big booklet to read every week and I’m like, ‘I just can’t do it,’ and I didn’t understand a lot of it at the beginning and I got to the point and thought I just don’t like it and I went down to Student Services … and I nearly changed courses and they said, ‘that course is full, so you can either come back next September, but we recommend you just stick your course out for a bit and then if you still want to change’ … And I was like ‘fair do’s’ because there was no way I was not going to be at university anymore, it never even crossed my mind that I’d just quit … And then after the first couple of weeks, it was just like, I was just so pleased I didn’t change because I really enjoy it … Everyone else were like sort of treading lightly around it and my sister was just like, ‘stop being soft and just get on with it.’ Michael.

Cavarero: Narratable selves

• Desire for narration

• Narratable selves

• Telling and hearing our story is about becoming a narrative

‘who’ not an abstract philosophical ‘what’ – our narratives

constitute each of us as a ‘living singularity’ not an abstract

universal

• Relational ethic within the collective

Implications for transitions practice(s)

• Recognizing singularity and multiplicity

• Relationship focused approach?

• Relationality

• Social justice

• What is learning?

• What is the idea of the University?

• Rethink what is fixed and established about an institution

Implications for researching transition

• Transition is a moving concept, constituted differently within each event and singularity

• Ethics: Entanglement of researched-researcher-data

• Need to seek new ways of representing and writing about transition

Questions?

Contact details

• Dr Carol Taylor• C.Taylor@shu.ac.uk• http://www.shu.ac.uk/research/ern/sp_carol_taylor.html

• Jean Harris-Evans• J.Harris-Evans@shu.ac.uk

• To find out more about the Department of Education, Childhood and Inclusion:

• http://www.shu.ac.uk/faculties/ds/deci/

References

• Cavarero, A. (2000). Relating narratives: Storytelling and selfhood. trans. Paul A. Kottman, London, Routledge.

• Delanda, M. (2006). A New Philosophy of Society. London, Continuum.

• Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. London, Continuum.

• Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1994) What is philosophy? New York, Columbia University Press.

• Gale, T. and Parker, S. (2012). Navigating change: A typology of student transition in higher education, Studies in Higher Education, ifirst.

• Coleman, B. and Ringrose, J. (2013) (eds.) Deleuze and research methodologies. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press.