Abstract

The aim of this interactive presentation is to provide a brief overview of the author’s research study (who is aiming to start data collection in September 2015) and set out the proposed theoretical framework in order to invite and seek feedback on its use.

The research is focused on the social contexts within why and how student voice is used within an institution and how this affects the practices and procedures. The researcher wishes to work with participants to construct the discursive reality of how the historical, political, economic and institutional influences have affected the way that students, staff and senior management are involved within the student-university relationship and how this proliferates through to working with students and empowering them to have a positive influence on their educational experience.
To conceptualise the student-university relationship requires both the study of the objects and subjects to be able to construct meaning about how the structures and practices operate. Discourse analysis therefore enables an effective examination of what Foucault terms ‘regimes of truth’ (Vaughan, 2004) and seeks to identify legitimate or authorised aspects of the relationship and the tensions/barriers to an effective student –university relationship.
The study aims to blend critical theory (constructing and reconstructing the student-university relationship) and post-structuralism (acknowledging the historical discourses that influence or limit the conceptualisation of the student-university relationship) within an ethnographic case study. It is proposed that Habermas’ theory of knowing will provide a theoretical framing from which to try and determine how students are incorporated within the student-university relationship, with Foucault's concepts of discipline, surveillance and governmentality more specifically guiding the methodological approach to discourse and dialogue.